LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
8X 5* 3 1 7. 

Chap. Copyright No. 

sheifJLaWs 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




H OF Co 



: 



JUN 6 1898 



■■^t J 




HISTORY 



OF THE 



PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL 

Church in Alabama 

1763-1891 

BY fS j(^ / 
WALTER C; WHITAKER 

Rector of Christ Church, Tuskaloosa, Ala. 



11 Ivook unto the rock whence ye are hewn." — Isaiah 51:1. 
"To stir you up by putting you in remembrance." 

—I St. Peter 1:13. 



BIRMINGHAM, A 

ROBERTS & S 




; 



SECOND COPY, 







5:1428 



COPYRIGHT, 1898, 
BY WAI/TER C. WHITAKER. 



TO THE 

CHURCHMEN OF ALABAMA. 



\ 



PREFACE. 



THE author has no apology to make for writing 
and publishing this history. He feels that an 
excuse must, from its very nature, be either in vain 
or unnecessary. The book itself must be his justifica- 
tion or his condemnation. 

He has of course written, as every man must write, 
from his own point of view. While claiming that it is 
his right to do this, he is not unaware that there are 
other points of view, and to their occupants he cheer- 
fully concedes the right to criticise his sense of pro- 
portion. 

It should be borne in mind that this is a history, 
not of bishops, priests, or parishes, but of a diocesan 
Church. Hence only those personal and parochial 
records appear that set forward the author's purpose. 
Matters of detail have been unhesitatingly sacrificed 
to comprehensiveness of statement. 

To those who have furnished much interesting in- 
formation and many valuable documents, especially 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 



to Bishop Wiumer and the Rkv. R. H. Cobbs, D. D., 
the author thus publicly expresses his appreciation of 
their kindness. 



Tuskaix>osa, Ala., 

Easter Monday, 1898. 



CONTENTS. 



PART FIRST. 



THE ACEPHALOUS CHURCH. 



CHAP. . PAGE. 

I. Potest Tolerari n 

II. Organization 17 

III. A Headless Body 24 



PART SECOND. 

THE EPISCOPATE OE BISHOP COBBS. 

I. Bishop Cobbs' Early Life 43 

II. Missionary Character of the Diocese 49 

III. Missionary Sowings 53 

IV. Difficulties and Discouragements 57 

V. With Loins Begirt 64 

VI. The Church Building Era 70 

VII. Congregational Growth 75 

VIII. The Church's Slave Children 80 

IX. Endowment of the Episcopate 84 

X. The Diocesan Missionary Society 93 

XI. The Relief of the Clergy 99 

XII. Church Schools 105 

XIII. Personnel of the Clergy 113 



8 CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 

CHAP. PAGE. 

XIV. The Theological Tone 123 

XV. Parish Life 132 

XVI. Last Days of Bishop Cobbs 141 



PART THIRD. 



THE EPISCOPATE OF BISHOP WII.MER. 

I. A Confederate Diocese 153 

II. Bishop Wilmer's Early Life 158 

III. War Times 164 

IV. The Bishop and General Orders 171 

V. The Bishop and the General Convention 188 

VI. Decay of the Negro Work 195 

VII. Ethiopia's Uplifted Hands 206 

VIII. The Orphans' Home 213 

IX. The Case of Hamner Hall 219 

X. Edification and Demolition 233 

XI. The Revolution of Boom Times 248 

XII. The Diocesan Missionary Society 257 

XIII. The Golden Age 270 

XIV. Looking Backward .. ._ _ 284 

XV. Aaron's Sons and Hur's 294 

XVI. Prospective 303 



PART FiRST. 



The Acephalous Church 



HISTORY 

OF THE 

CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 



CHAPTER I. 

POTEST TOIvKRARI. 

THE beginning of the record carries us down to 
the waters of the Gulf and back to the sixth 
decade of the last century. 

The French and Indian War had just ceased, and 
in the ensuing division of territory France had ceded 
to England the fort and village of Mobile. The settle- 
ment here was sixty years old. Except the garrison 
few Englishmen ever came to the village, and they 
that did come fell under the dominant French influ- 
ence. 

The Governor, Robert Farmer, a man whose range 
of reading was so great that he could compare Pontiac 
with Mithridates, and refresh himself in hours of 
weariness with Montesquieu, and who, in his corres- 
pondence with the French governor of New Orleans, 
evinced thorough familiarity with both the Salic Law 
and Magna Charta, was withal a notoriously dissolute 
man. His strong mentality and weak morality yielded 



1 2 HISTORY OF THE 



their accustomed fruits in his subordinates, and the 
few villagers and more numerous soldier}*, copying the 
weaker * traits of their commander, were strangers to 
virtue and familiars of dissipation and debauchery. 

A person calling himself a clergyman of the Church 
of England lounged about the place and occasionally 
held public services. The people seriously questioned 
his ordination, of which he gave no proof. His charac- 
ter, however, they did not question. As a good priest 
is the best of men, so a bad priest is the worst of men; 
and this reputed clergyman, drifting among the out- 
posts of civilization, was so horribly ungodly and 
lascivious that even the hardened soldiers and camp- 
followers of Mobile held him in detestation. 

It was to this morally desolate place that the Rev. 
Samuel Hart, of Charleston, S. C, received license to 
minister in 1764. The missionary spirit was none too 
active in those days, even among the missionaries 
themselves, and Mr. Hart's zeal was not kindled when 
he found the field so sterile and the society so uncon- 
genial. He soon determined to return to more civil- 
ized regions. 

But before his departure he took occasion, at a 
general congress held with the Indians, to preach 
them a lengthy and quite dogmatic sermon, which 
the interpreter explained sentence by sentence. The 
Indian chief was very attentive. After dinner he 
asked Mr. Hart whereabouts lived the Great Warrior, 
God Almighty, of whom he talked so much, and 
desired to know if He were a friend of " Brother 
George ' ' across the water. This question started Mr. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 3 

Hart into another long discourse, wherein he expa- 
tiated on God's being and attributes, and sought to 
enlighten the dusky warrior on the divine transcend- 
ence and immanence; but he was utterly unable to 
impart any idea of his subject-matter to his hearer. 
Finally his verbosity wearied the chief, who solemnly 
took him by the hand, and, filling a glass with rum, 
concluded the interview much to his own satisfaction, 
by saying: " Beloved man, I will always think well 
of this friend of ours, God Almighty, of whom you 
tell me so much; and so let us drink his health." 
Then he drank the rum and went back to his native 
forests. 

After a sojourn in Mobile of about a year Mr. Hart 
saw the growth of the village seriously retarded and 
its very existence rendered problematic by a fearful 
scourge introduced from Jamaica by a British regi- 
ment, and nourished by the dissolute habits of the 
population; and, in 1765, he returned to Charleston. 

After this no attempt was made to plant the Church 
in Alabama until 1826; a single service held -in Flor- 
ence two years before by the Rev. William Wall not 
being followed up by either the clergyman or the 
people. 

In the intervening sixty years Alabama's popula- 
tion had grown to three hundred thousand. The dig- 
nity of statehood had been conferred on the territory. 
Material prosperity had greatly increased. Manners 
and morals, subject to new influences, showed marked 
improvement. But nowhere was the Church visible 
in diocese, parish, or mission. Methodist and Bap- 



14 HISTORY OF THE 



tist houses of worship appeared, and here and there 
Presbyterian, but the Church of Apostolic Succession 
was without a single minister or congregation in the 
entire state. 

It would be idle to say that no blame attaches to 
the Bishops, clergy and laity in the established dio- 
ceses of the older states; and yet these do not deserve 
the entire burden of censure heaped upon them even 
by the Churchfolk of today. The bulk of population 
in the Tennessee Valley came down from Tennessee 
and Kentucky wherein Churchmen were few and far 
between. In Middle Alabama a considerable propor- 
tion were Churchmen; and so in Mobile. But for 
thirty years (1783-18 13) South Alabama was in the 
hands of the Spanish, who allowed no public re- 
ligious exercises other than those of the Holy Roman 
Church. In this district Anglican Christianity was 
not permitted to show its head. Then, when in 18 13 
the territory passed back into the hands of English- 
speaking people and was for the first time incorpor- 
ated in the United States, the Church had to contend, 
not only in Alabama, but all through the Union, with 
an unfavorable popular prejudice, of which not suffi- 
cient account is ordinarily taken by those who com- 
ment on her present numerical weakness in this 
country. 

Down to the Revolutionary War the Church in the 
colonies was distinctly Anglican in its customs and in 
its constitution. Every American clergyman was or- 
dained in England, and the majority were born there; 
so that, though living in America, their sympathies 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 5 

were naturally with the mother in her disputes with 
the daughter. Although their sense of justice caused 
many of them to side with the rebelling colonies in 
the struggle for independence and induced well-nigh 
all to cast in their fortunes with the new-born nation 
when the war was over, yet they were regarded with 
suspicion. It was well known that the Protestant 
Episcopal Church was an offshoot of the Church of 
England. Practically the Church of England was 
the English people and the English Government. 
An organic body in this country that derived its 
authority from England, and that had been, through 
its chief official representatives in England, in hostil- 
ity towards a national uprising, was entirely out of 
touch with American ideals and institutions, and de- 
served to be cast out and trodden under foot. It is 
true that some of the leading patriots were members 
of this despised body — George Washington, Patrick 
Henry, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Peyton Ran- 
dolph, Robert Morris, Alexander Hamilton, Madison, 
Monroe, and Francis Scott Key, not to mention hun- 
dreds of others — but their membership was held to be 
an idiosyncracy for which, in the light of their many 
virtues, they should not be too severely censured. 

This prejudice, ignorant as is all prejudice, arose 
and nourished long before the open hostilities of the 
War of the Revolution began. By the end of the en- 
suing thirty years of peace with England it had begun 
to diminish, but the second conflict, the War of 1812, 
fanned it into brighter flame than ever. The utmost 
that zealous Americanism would grant the Church 



1 6 CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 

was ' ' Potest Tolerari. ' ' Those men were our grand- 
fathers. Their bitter prejudice still washes at our feet 
after two generations. 

So the Church had to await her time and opportu- 
nity. Here and there, throughout the territory of 
Alabama, a few Church families, emigrants from the 
states, were thrown together, and irregularly held 
lay-services, supplemented at long intervals by the 
chance visit of some clerical relative, friend, or itiner- 
ant. Many of these early Churchmen became dis- 
couraged at the apparent forgetfulness of their Mother 
and united themselves with sectarian bodies, chiefly 
Methodist and Baptist, whose noble, self-sacrificing 
preachers kept in the vanguard of civilization, along- 
side, and sometimes ahead of, the gambling-den and 
the whisky-hell. But here and there were forming 
nuclei of the large congregations that are now found 
in Mobile, Montgomery, Selma, Birmingham, and 
Huntsville, and of parishes elsewhere that are only 
awaiting an uncrystalized material on which to work. 



CHAPTER II. 

ORGANIZATION. 

SUCH was the condition of affairs when in Novem- 
ber, 1826, the Domestic and Foreign Missionary 
Society of the Church, then five years old, directed 
the Rev. Robert Davis ' ' to visit the State of Alabama 
and advance the interests of the Society and religion ' ' 
there. Shortly after his appointment Mr. Davis set 
out on what was then a long and tedious journey; but 
being detained on his way by illness he did not reach 
Tuskaloosa, his objective point, till the winter of 
1827. 

Tuskaloosa was then a small village, eight years of 
age, and with a population of not more than five or 
six hundred souls. But within the past year it had 
been made the State capital, and a considerable popu- 
lation was certain in the near future. At any rate, 
Mr. Davis thought that with the capital as his center 
of operations he could the better extend the influence 
and ministrations of the Church into other villages 
and hamlets of the interior. Here, therefore, he re- 
mained several months, ministering constantly to the 
half-dozen Church families that had moved in, but 
apparently making no missionary excursions. On 
January 7, 1828, Christ Church parish was organized, 
and the building of a parish church undertaken. 

Whether Mr. Davis had any idea of remaining in 
17 



1 8 HISTORY OF THE 



Tuskaloosa is doubtful. He was not sent out to do 
missionary work, but was simpl) T a collecting agent of 
the Missionary Society, working on a commission of 
ten per cent, of his gross collections. He left Tuska- 
loosa on March 25th of this } r ear, 1828 ; and his 
subsequent demand on the Domestic and Foreign 
Missionary Society for his commission on the sev- 
enteen hundred dollars subscribed towards the parish 
church explains in part the zeal that he manifested 
for the erection of a house of worship. 

Mr. Davis' departure was followed by cessation of 
effort on the part of the newly-organized parish; but 
in February, 1829, a newly-appointed missionary, the 
Rev. William H. Judd, arrived from New York, and 
infused new life into the project. Mr. Judd lived only 
six months after he came to Alabama, but his success 
was marked, the church building being almost com- 
pleted at the time of his death. He left the congre- 
gation in a nourishing condition, and not only flour- 
ishing but united — a fact worthy of note, for there 
were not thirty communicants in the parish. 

Meanwhile another clergyman was working in Ala- 
bama. Three weeks before Mr. Davis had reached 
Tuskaloosa, the Rev. Henry A. Shaw had taken 
charge of the church families in Mobile. Here in 
1822 a few Churchmen had built the first non-Roman- 
ist place of worship in the entire district wrested from 
the Spanish nine years before. For three years union 
services were held in this building, ministers being 
engaged without reference to denomination. In 1825 
this arrangement ceased, and the Churchmen organ- 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 9 

ized Christ Church parish. A Presbyterian minister, 
the Rev. Murdoch Murphy, continued to officiate as 
the parish minister until Mr. Shaw's arrival in De- 
cember, 1827. The original Christ Church must have 
been a very small, cheap, and unsubstantial structure, 
for in 1834 the rector complained that it was "too 
small and very old," although the parish numbered 
only twenty- eight communicants, and the building had 
been used only twelve years. 

In 1830 the Church in Alabama, and especially the 
parish of Mobile, received some encouragement from 
a visit of the Rt. Rev. Thomas C. Brownell, Bishop 
of Connecticut. Dr. Brownell had been requested 
by the Domestic Missionary Board to make a visita- 
tion to all the Southern States not then organized into 
dioceses, and in pursuance of this request he visited 
Mobile in January, 1830. 

On the 25th da}- of that month he presided over 
the Primary Convention, at which the diocese was 
organized. According to Bishop Brownell 's report 
the convention was composed of "the principal Epis- 
copalians of the city and from other parts of the state. ' ' 
But the delegates from outside the place of meeting 
were few. The state was very deficient in transport- 
ation facilities. More than a month was required to 
make the journey by water from Demopolis or Mont- 
gomery to Mobile and return, and so miserable were 
the few rough country roads that penetrated the vast 
stretches of pine forests and the dangerous morasses 
of the Mobile river and its tributaries that few cared 
to use them. Therefore the Primary Convention was 
slimly attended. Besides the Bishop, the local min- 



20 HISTORY OF THE 

ister (the Rev. Henry Shaw), and the Rev. William 
Richmond, a New York clergyman, the only other 
cleric present was the Rev. Albert A. Muller, who 
had recently been transferred from Mississippi and 
was stationed at Tuskaloosa. Ten or twelve laymen 
were in attendance, the majority from Mobile. The 
parishes of Mobile and Tuskaloosa, and the congrega- 
tion at Greensboro, which had just been organized 
by Mr. Muller, were represented. A constitution was 
adopted, a Standing Committee was appointed, and 
steps were taken to secure a union with the diocese 
of Mississippi and the congregations of Louisiana. 
The Convention then adjourned to meet again in Mo- 
bile on May 12 of the same year. 

At the time set lay delegates appeared from the 
same three congregations as before, but Mr. Shaw 
was the only clergyman present, Mr. Muller appar- 
ently not caring to spend two months of the same 
year on the Warrior and Tombigbee rivers. The 
Convention, without transacting any business, ad- 
journed to meet at Tuskaloosa on January 3, 1831, 
hopeful that the accessibility of that place would allow 
a full attendance. 

The hope was not disappointed. Although Mr. 
Muller sat in solitary clerical state, Mr. Shaw this 
time absenting himself, delegates from Mobile were 
present. Deputations attended also from Greensboro, 
and from Huntsville, whither a few Churchmen had 
removed. Ten souls constituted this Convention — 
a small number absolutely, but relatively six times 
larger than any Diocesan Council of the last decade. 



CHURCH IN A LABAMA. 2_I 

A communication was received from the diocese of 
Mississippi asking the appointment of a committee of 
six, to meet the same number each from Mississippi 
and Louisiana, with a view to the formation out of 
the three bodies of " The Southwestern Diocese." As 
this request was the outcome of a resolution adopted 
at the Primary Convention of Alabama the year 
before, it was granted. The committee appointed 
consisted of the two clergy resident in the state, Chief 
Justice Abner S. Lipscomb and Mr. John Eliott of 
Mobile, and Messrs. J. M. Davenport and A. P. Bald- 
win of Tuskaloosa. Bishop Brownell was requested 
to continue in charge of the Church in Alabama, and 
to render such Episcopal service as might be required. 
A set of four canons was adopted by this Convention 
— probably the shortest code of laws ever in force in 
an American diocese. 

We have seen that at this time parishes were estab- 
lished and organized in Mobile and Tuskaloosa, the 
metropolis and the capital, and that congregations had 
been gathered at Greensboro and Huntsville. A year 
or two later, Bishop Brownell made a journey of in- 
spection through the state, and held services at Selma, 
Montgomery and Florence. These places were all 
small villages, but the Bishop deemed them favorable 
missionary soil. 

No other congregations than these existed in Ala- 
bama' when the General Convention of 1832 recog- 
nized Alabama as an autonomous diocese, and the 
weakness of the Church was so great that many 
deemed it idle that such action should have been taken. 



HISTORY OF THE 



There was little or no community of interest between 
the two clergymen. The Rev. Xorman Pinney had 
succeeded the Rev. Mr. Shaw as rector of Chris: 
Church. Mobile, but he was so much engrossed with 
his own parochial affairs that he did not appear at a 
Convention of the diocese till more than three years 
later. 

Only Mr. Midler and nine laymen composed the 
Convention of 1832, one-half of whose membership 
was from Tuskaloosa. where the Convention was held. 
It was not an over-cheerful Convention. Earnest 
appeals to the Domestic and Foreign Missionary So- 
ciety were not heeded, though the Society was mean- 
while supporting missionaries in Greece, where an 
orthodox branch of the Holy Catholic Church was 
already established. Pecuniar}- reasons influenced 
Mr. Muller. after two years of faithful sendee, to dis- 
continue his monthly visits to Greensboro — a seri- 
ous discouragement to this congregation, which had 
secured a lot and raised a considerable sum of money 
towards the erection of a church building. Hunts- 
ville was despondent at her failure to secure outside 
aid in building a house of worship. Liberality towards 
the Church did not keep pace with the increase of 
Churchmen's bank accounts. 

Spiritual parsimony was most marked in the Ten- 
nessee Valley, which was now making great indus- 
trial progress. Here, in 1S32, money enough was 
found to build, in Madison County. Alabama's first 
cotton factory, and to construct from Tuscumbia to 
Decatur the state's first railroad. Churchmen built 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 23 

for themselves houses of cedar, while yet not even a 
tabernacle was erected to the glory of God. 

In 1833 the Church's most faithful children were 
so disheartened that they did not even attempt to 
hold the Convention, which was to have met at Tus- 
kaloosa. Mr. Muller had left this place because of 
very scandalous lapses from religion and morality 
that subsequently resulted in his deposition from the 
sacred ministry, and the congregation which he left 
behind him was gradually and surely melting away. 
Only at Mobile, throughout this dark biennium, did 
any vigor remain, and even there the communicants 
were a mere handful. 



CHAPTER III. 

A HKADI.ESS BODY. 

THE General Convention of 1832, which admitted 
the diocese of Alabama into union with itself, 
took other action which served to arouse Alabama 
Churchmen from their apathy by giving them some- 
thing to do, to think of, and to hope for. A special 
canon was enacted allowing the dioceses of Alabama 
and Mississippi and the churches in Louisiana to pro- 
ceed to the formation of that "Southwestern Diocese,' ' 
which the Churchmen of the three states deemed the 
only practicable scheme for ensuring constant Epis- 
copal oversight. 

Then the general Board of Missions determined to 
send a missionary to Alabama. The selection of the 
Rev. Caleb S. Ives was providential. He knew 
where to take hold, and how to inspire hope and en- 
thusiasm. His first work was to gather together the 
congregational fragments in what are now Greene, 
Hale, and Marengo counties. At Greensboro the 
congregation, which had been organized by Mr. 
Muller on March 14, 1830, and had scattered, sheep 
without a shepherd, now numbered six families. But 
as the mighty influence of Bethlehem Ephrata de- 
pended not on its numerical strength, so again, on 
Christmas Eve, this time in Alabama, w r as born a 
Christ-spirit; and on December 24, 1833, the little 
congregation, stirred by Mr. Ives' zeal, aroused itself 

24 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 2$ 

from sleep, formed the parish of "St. Paul's," and 
went to work in the Master's vineyard. The mis- 
sionary seed dropped that Christmas Eve has borne 
fruit a hundred-fold, and today Greensboro is a chief 
center of missionary activity in the diocese. 

But not even in Greensboro was it plain sailing for 
the Church in those days. If Mr. Ives encouraged 
others he often faced difficulties and met with disap- 
pointments. "The doctrines and services of the 
Church," he wrote from Greensboro, in 1835, "so 
far as can be ascertained, are favorably received; and 
the prospects for building up the Church here are as 
flattering as could be expected under existing circum- 
stances. The place has been too long neglected, 
which, together with the abortive attempt once made 
to establish the Church here, requires much labor, 
fidelity, and perseverance to place her even on an 
equal footing with the other denominations." 

On Sunday, December 15, 1833, a week after the 
first service that he had held at Greensboro, Mr. Ives 
officiated at Demopolis, where he found a few Church 
families. This was the first Church service ever held 
at Demopolis. In the following month Mr. Ives re- 
turned to Demopolis, and on January 31, 1834, or- 
ganized Trinity parish. In this month also he gath- 
ered a congregation at a point nine miles southwest 
of Greensboro and on the road to Demopolis, and 
here, on April 19, 1834, organized the parish of 
"St. John's in the Prairies."* 

*This parish has been defunct since 1865, when the remnant 

of the congregation connected itself with St. Paul's, Greens- 
— 3 



26 HISTORY OF THE 



In the following September, at Prairieville* he es- 
tablished a congregation. Constantly did his field of 
labor broaden. Thoroughly did he cultivate all his 
rich territory. Abundantly did it respond to his en- 
deavors. 

The outlook was now becoming brighter for the 
whole diocese — what there was of it — and at the Con- 
vention w T hich met in Mobile in January, 1835, Bishop 
Brownell, all three of the diocesan clergy, and dele- 
gates from Mobile, Tuskaloosa, Greensboro, and 
Demopolis, were in attendance. This Convention 
recommended to the next annual Convention a revised 
constitution, somewhat fuller and more explicit than 
its predecessor, and adopted a body of canons provid- 
ing for the composition and guidance of subsequent 
Conventions and for the reception of clergymen into 
canonical residence in a parish. Through a fatal de- 
fect in the third canon it became possible for unbap- 
tized men to sit in the diocesan Convention, and it 
was not necessary that a delegate to the General Con- 
vention, the highest deliberative and legislative body 
in the Church, should have received the Laying on 
of Hands. The clergy and six laymen were ap- 
pointed deputies to the Convention soon to meet in 
New Orleans for the purpose of organizing the South- 
western Diocese. 

boro. The church building, a memorial of its first rector, the 
Rev. John Avery, D. D., who served the parish in 1836, was, 
in 1878, given to the congregation at Forkland, a neighboring 
village lying between the Tombigbee and Warrior rivers. 
* After wards Macon, and now Gallion. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 27 

We may here very properly conclude all reference 
to this scheme, fruitless so far as Alabama was imme- 
diately concerned. 

The three states interested sent deputies to the Con- 
vention, which sat in New Orleans on March 4 and 
5, 1835. Fifteen persons were present. The Con- 
vention put forth a declaration to the effect that it 
understood from the special canon of the General 
Convention, under which it was acting, that the new 
body, which they were about to organize, was not to 
be merely a confederation of three organisms, enjoy- 
ing the benefits of the same Bishop and holding inter- 
communion only through him, but was to form one 
organic diocese. With this declaration as a basis the 
Southwestern Diocese was organized, a constitution 
was adopted, and a Bishop was elected. The choice 
fell upon Dr. Francis L. Hawks, rector of St. Thomas' 
Church, New York, and, with the possible exception 
of Stephen H. Tyng, the most powerful preacher of 
his generation. Dr. Hawks declined the office, and, 
while his declination caused much disappointment^ 
it was doubtless well for the churches that he did not 
become their Bishop; for when, nine years later, Mis- 
sissippi, acting for herself, called him to be her Bishop, 
and subsequently iterated the election, charges made 
against him at that time of being given to ungovern- 
able bursts of temper and to financial irregularities ap- 
pear to have been not without some foundation. At 
any rate his declination ended Alabama's connection 
with the new diocese, for the Church grew so rapidly 
in the next few months that the Diocesan Convention, 



28 HISTORY OF THE 



held ill Mobile in 1836, passed resolutions affirming 
Alabama's withdrawal from the Southwestern Dio- 
cese and her intention to preserve her autonomy as 
an independent diocese. 

The first clerical perversion in the diocese belongs 
to this period. The Rev. Norman Pinney, rector of 
Christ Church, Mobile, was the pervert. Even while 
at heart a Unitarian, he had taken the sacred vows of 
priesthood in a Church whose prescribed daily services 
required the minister to declare explicitly his belief 
in the divinity of Jesus Christ at least nineteen times 
in one day. For some time the Churchmen of Mobile 
had deemed his teaching unsound in its expressed 
or implied contravention of Creed and Articles, and 
rumor of this unsoundness finally reached Bishop 
Brownell's ears. As the ecclesiastical authority of 
the diocese of Alabama, the Bishop, in 1835, sum- 
moned Mr. Pinney to appear before him. He received 
from that minister's own lips a definite denial of belief 
in Christ as God. No hesitation was possible, and 
Mr, Pinney was promptly deposed from the sacred 
ministry. Mr. Pinney was an accomplished scholar, 
but he was not of magnetic mind, his personal follow- 
ing was not great, and his defection from the faith, 
followed by twenty years of school-teaching in Mobile, 
does not appear to have produced any evil effect either 
on the parish or on any individuals. 

Mr. Pinney was succeeded as rector of Christ 
Church, Mobile, by the Rev. Samuel S. Lewis, who, 
removing thither from Tuskaloosa, shortly reported 
that his new parish numbered 114 communicants. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 2Q. 

Mr. Lewis was succeeded at Tuskaloosa by the Rev. 
Andrew Matthews. The Rev. William Johnson took 
charge of the shepherdless little congregation at Mont- 
gomery, in December, 1835, and, after leading their 
devotions first in a Baptist and then in a Universalist 
place of worship, succeeded in building a neat brick 
church, the first St. John's Church of the town, and 
had it ready for consecration by Bishop Kemper on 
occasion of his visit to Montgomery in 1837. We- 
tumpka, then hopeful of being the chief city of the 
interior, soon owned a brick house of worship, built 
by the energetic efforts of the Rev. Robert G. Hays, 
who had come from Tennessee. Florence began to 
give evidence of that Church life which Bishop 
Brownell had predicted five years before, and shortly 
after the arrival of the Rev. Thomas A. Cook, from 
South Carolina, had, though with only eight commu- 
nicants on the parish register, raised fifteen hundred 
dollars for a church building. Mr. Jacob Lorillard, 
of New York, transferred to the diocese six hundred 
and forty acres of land in Baldwin county for the 
support of the future Bishop, and to this gift were 
added subscriptions to the amount of $4,050, raised 
by Mr. Ives, who had been compelled by pecuniary 
necessities to retire temporarily from parish work and 
devote himself to the more lucrative pursuit of school- 
teaching in Mobile, and who, while traveling in the 
interest of his school, found opportunity to solicit 
subscriptions to the Bishop's Fund. The Baldwin 
county land was sold ten years later for five hundred 
dollars. That nothing whatever was realized from 



30 HISTORY OF THE 



the subscriptions made to Mr. Ives, was due to a 
decade of financial stringency upon which the country 
was just entering. 

The whole nation had given itself over to specula- 
tion, and values had become greatly inflated. In 
Alabama the appearances of prosperity were so flat- 
tering as to beguile tradesmen into an extension of 
purchases and credits, and planters into extravagant 
investments in lands and slaves. These delusive an- 
ticipations were not realized, and the people became 
deeply involved. The magnitude of this disaster is 
perceptible when we recall that before the first day of 
May, 1837, the failures of the year in New York City 
alone aggregated $100,000,000, and in New Orleans, 
Alabama's chief market place, amounted to $27,000,- 
000. A run was made on the banks. Specie pay- 
ment was suspended. The rapid depreciation of 
values to their normal size reduced many to poverty. 

Although eight clergymen were now at work in the 
diocese, the general distress forbade all thought of 
the election of a Bishop. The few established par- 
ishes were pushed to the utmost to support their own 
ministers, without attempting, even by united effort, 
to support a Bishop. Bishop Brownell could not be 
expected to come from Connecticut as frequently as 
he was needed, for in those days the journey required 
nearer forty-eight days than forty-eight hours; and 
when he came he could not undertake the long jour- 
neys of exploration that are among the chief duties of 
a pioneer Bishop. Feeling that it was out of question 
for him longer to exercise Episcopal oversight of 



CHURCH IX ALABAMA. 



the diocese, he delegated his duties as Provisional 
Bishop of Alabama to the Rt. Rev. James H. Otey, 
who had, only two years before, become Bishop 
of Tennessee. Bishop Otey gave what Episcopal 
supervision he could afford, and in 1836 made visita- 
tions at which he confirmed altogether about two- 
score persons. Two years later, at Bishop Otey's re- 
quest, Bishop Kemper visited portions of the state, 
confirming about the same number and consecrating 
the Church buildings in Montgomery and the Prairies. 
These were the only visits that Alabama received 
from a Bishop during five years. 

But it would not have sufficed had annual visita- 
tions been made. The diocese needed something 
more than an Episcopal confirming-machine that 
contents itself with visiting those parishes wherein 
classes await Confirmation; and, though it stumbled, 
and halted, and doubted sometimes, it knew what it 
needed. It needed a head to direct its spasmodic 
efforts to reach the spiritually deserted and famishing 
in those remote hamlets and sparsely settled neighbor- 
hoods that were a chief characteristic of a state yet 
in its minority. In plain words, it needed a resident 
Bishop. If it were to attempt the life of an exotic it 
would die. 

Yet, thwarting every effort, there stood that grim 
and silent Cerberus — Cerberus Ecclesiasticus , with two 
heads substituted for the papal tiara — "six resident 
clergymen for a w r hole year previous to the election of 
a Bishop," and an "endowment of the Episcopate." 
That presbyters must be before Bishops in order of 



32 HISTORY OF THE 



time, is a proposition that would have impressed 
St. Paul very deeply, and possibly have occasioned 
another Epistle. That the Bishopric must be en- 
dowed before the Bishop may be selected, and that 
all care shall be taken to prevent the head from suffer- 
ing even while the body may be dying, is doubtless a 
post- Apostolic tradition. It is a tradition, an heir- 
loom of our Anglican ancestry; but in many minds it 
has all the force of Constitutions and Canons. 

It took several years and much patience to root out 
this prejudice from the minds of some of the Clergy 
and laity of Alabama. In 1838, when the canonical 
sop of ' ' six resident clergy ' ' was ready to be thrown , 
the cry of the Committee on the State of the Church, 
" Let us but have the head that we so much need," 
was not met with even the common courtesy, "A 
resolution to that effect was introduced. ' ' The next 
y ear, when twelve clergy were at work in the state, 
the immediate election of a Bishop was staved off by 
the adoption of instructions to the Standing Com- 
mittee to take a whole year to ascertain the condition 
of the Bishop's Fund, the resources of the diocese for 
the support of a Bishop, and the expediency of pro- 
ceeding to an election. When this year had passed, 
the Convention of 1840 decided, after sharp debate, 
that the diocese had no canonical right to elect a 
Bishop. On what ground this decision was based is 
not known; in the diocese ten clergymen were at 
work, and seven of them had been in residence more 
than twelve months. Yet once again, in 1841, when 
there were eleven resident clergy and seventeen organ- 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 33 

ized parishes, the old resolution came forward in its 
stereotyped form: "It is inexpedient to go into the 
election of a Bishop at the present Convention." 
Cause: "The supposed want of canonical right and 
the want of available means of supporting a Bishop 
at this time. ' ' 

So passed the precious years of seed-time, forever 
irreclaimable, wasted away by short-sighted men, who 
would not elect a Bishop until they could ensure his 
dignity by making him comfortable. 

Meanwhile some of the clergy were doing such 
missionary work as was possible, with the Church 
purely presbyterial and poorly articulated, and were 
preaching here and there, looking up the stray sheep, 
dropping seed from place to place, and nurturing it as 
trial of the soil's fruitfulness. * Some of these at- 
tempts were successful, but many were the disap- 
pointments. Movements of population, crystalization 
of opposition, spiritual paralysis, are contingencies 
that the most sagacious eye cannot infallibly foresee 
and provide against. Prevision is especially short in 
young countries just opening their arms to immigra- 
tion; and such a country was Alabama. 

*Bufaula was thus visited in 1844 by the Rev. J. L. Gay, 
who set about gathering a congregation and establishing a 
parish. While the meeting for organization was in session, 
and the question of a name for the parish was under consider- 
ation, the stage rolled in from Columbus, bringing papers that 
told of the nomination of James K. Polk for President. One 
of the gentlemen present, Col. John L. Hunter, suggested 
that the parish be called St. James', and Mr., now ex-Senator, 
J. Iv. Pugh, seconded the motion, which prevailed unani- 
mously. 



34 HISTORY OF THE 



Two examples will suffice to illustrate the uncer- 
tain outcome of missionary enterprise. One shall be 
an instance of failure, one of success. The former 
case shall be that of La Fayette, in East Alabama; 
the latter, Selma. The clergy were of equal zeal. 
The conditions were alike favorable. In neither case, 
apparently, was judgment at fault in the organizing 
of a congregation. 

The church in La Fayette was founded in 1838 by 
the Rev. Thomas A. Cook. The village then had a 
population of about twelve hundred souls, and though 
in size equal only to the Auburn, Brewton, and Eutaw 
of today, was, on account of the small population of 
the state, of much greater relative importance than 
are these thriving villages. Within six months the 
minister reported eight communicants and a Sunday 
School of forty pupils, and was collecting funds for 
the building of what was to be Trinity Church. The 
beginning was auspicious; but in 1840 the sky had 
clouded over, and the report was full of despondency: 
"The present moment may be looked upon as the 
darkest page in the history of our enterprise. In all 
our demonstrations the people are neither hot nor 
cold; there is neither the voice of prayer nor praise, 
but a listless assent to anything. At present our 
Sunday School is not large; there are from twelve to 
twenty scholars." In 1841 a slight upward tendency 
was perceptible; but the community had been hard 
hit by the long-continued commercial depression, and 
the congregation worked with the listlessness of hope 
deferred. No further report was ever made from the 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 35 

ill-fated parish. Only once, and that in 1846, did it 
receive the visit of a Bishop. Year after year the 
Finance Committee assessed "Trinity Church, La 
Fayette," first five, and then, after the election of a 
Bishop, fifty dollars, for diocesan expenses, but the 
assessment remained unpaid and accumulating year 
by year, and was ultimately remitted by the Conven- 
tion. The Rev. Mr. Cook broke down in health, re- 
moved to Talladega, and quitted the active ministry. 
In 1846 Bishop Cobbs wrote concerning his recent 
visit to this region : "It is melancholy to reflect that, 
in all that beautiful country lying east of the Coosa 
river, there is not an officiating minister of the 
Church. May the Lord, in his good Providence, 
soon send forth a faithful clergyman to labor in that 
neglected field." The prayer has been answered 
after many days, and, though the Church is still a 
stranger in La Fayette, her ministrations are now reg- 
ularly received at Anniston, Talladega, Jacksonville, 
Piedmont, Sylacauga, and Childersb.urg, and at most 
of these places the prospect of future growth and use- 
fulness is most encouraging. 

The case illustrative of successful planting is that 
of Selma. Services were begun here about the same 
time as at La Fayette, and were conducted twice a 
month by the Rev. Lucien B. Wright, who served 
this parish in conjunction with Hayneville. La 
Fayette and Selma had about the same population. 
Very nearly the same number of communicants was 
reported at each place, La Fayette reporting eight 
and Selma seven. But here the points of similarity 



36 HISTORY OF THE 



cease. Whilst in La Fayette the Church first re- 
mained stationary and then retrograded, in Selma it 
grew from the first. In 1839 Selma gained five com- 
municants — a seventy per cent, increase — and began 
the erection of a church, a substantial brick structure, 
which, at completion a few years later, had cost more 
than eight thousand dollars. The steady growth of 
the congregation was uninterrupted, although, from 
lack of Episcopal visitations, the communicant roll 
did not grow longer for several years. In 1846 the 
Rev. J. H. Linebaugh, who had recently become rec- 
tor, reported very despondently that he saw but little 
in the condition of the parish to give encouragement, 
as there were only sixteen communicants and the 
congregation was struggling under a debt of $2,400, 
contracted for the building of the church. However, 
this hopelessness soon passed. In 1847 the creditors 
accepted $637 in satisfaction of the entire debt, several 
hundred dollars were raised toward the completion of 
the building, the communicants increased in number 
to twenty-two, and the congregation laid aside its 
mission swaddling clothes, and stepped forth a self- 
supporting parish. In throwing away the crutch of 
outside aid the congregation gained new strength and 
vigor. The communicants numbered 37 in 1850, 57 
in i860, 169 in 1870, 215 in 1880, and 280 in 1890. 
There were times of discouragement, and, in single 
years, of apparent retrogression, but the comparison 
of decade with decade shows continual progression, 
and today St. Paul's Church, Selma, which at the 
beginning had but two communicants, is the sixth 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 37 

parish in the diocese numerically, and the third finan- 
cially. 

As in these two places, so in others growth and dis- 
solution were moving on with steps that, under the 
conditions, the wisdom of man could neither hasten 
nor retard. The acephalous Church was feeling its 
way blindly. Even as powerful members of the body 
as Lewis and Knapp could not give the oversight and 
superintendence without which the diocese must at 
last fail most miserably in its work. Parish priests 
have not the time to go out into the distant byways in 
search of the sheep. They have not the opportunity 
to know the needs of remote regions. They cannot, 
in their occasional experiments, act with authority. 
They have a line of duty marked out; and that duty 
is not the duty of the head. The Church has never 
done aggressive work without a Bishop. The Church 
cannot without a Bishop preserve health in what she 
already has. Alabama in 1840, and Alaska and Mex- 
ico in 1895, bore identical testimony to these truths 
across a chasm of more than half a century. Men 
may ofttimes close their ears to what both history and 
reason would fain tell them, but there is always a 
minority that will perceive the truth and proclaim it 
in season and out of season. 

Some such men were living in Alabama in the early 
'Forties, and they were heard at Convention after Con- 
vention. Headed by the Rev. J. J. Scott, of Living- 
ston, and the Rev. F. R. Hanson, they contended that 
the lack of an Episcopal head was an unhappy anom- 
aly, to remedy which the Convention should put forth 



38 HISTORY OF THE 



all its energies. Yet so strong was the opposition of 
some of the clergy to an election, an opposition based 
chiefly, it would seem, on dread that in some indefin- 
able way a Bishop would rob them of a portion of their 
independence, that the clearer-headed were forced to 
lag with the short-sighted, penny- wise pound-foolish, 
majority. 

But in 1842 the minority became the majority. The 
denial of canonical right was now untenable, for eight 
clergymen had been canonically resident more than 
twelve months. Only the endowment scheme could 
be used as a breakwater, and this was not pushed 
when seven parishes — Christ Church, Mobile, and the 
churches in Tuskaloosa, Greensboro, the Prairies, Liv- 
ingston, Florence and Tuscumbia — pledged themselves 
to raise one thousand dollars of the Bishop's salary, 
and St. John's, Montgomery, offered to increase this 
amount by another thousand dollars if the Bishop 
should also accept the rectorship of that parish. Thus 
the last obstacle to the election of a Bishop was re- 
moved. The election was accordingly entered upon, 
and the lot fell upon the Rev. Martin P. Parks, a 
presbyter of the diocese of Virginia, but, at the time, 
chaplain of the United States Military Academy at 
West Point. But Mr. Parks' reply to the call was, 
substantially, " Nolo Episcopari. " 

Another year passed, and again the Convention was 
assembled. Bishop Polk, of Louisiana, provisional 
Bishop of Alabama, was in the chair. He urged that 
the disappointment of the previous year should but 
make the members of the Convention more intent to 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 39 

secure a Bishop, and that all other business, however 
urgent, should be subordinated to this supreme neces- 
sity. The Bishop's charge was followed to the letter. 
The Episcopal salary was placed at $2,000 in connec- 
tion with a parochial charge, or $1,200 independently 
of such charge. The election resulted in the choice 
of the Rev. James T. Johnston, of Virginia. But he 
also declined the office. 

The third choice was more successful. The Con- 
vention of 1844 met at Greensboro, and on May 3 
again turned its eyes towards a Virginian — a record 
unbroken to this day. Under the guidance of the 
Holy Spirit, it elected as first Bishop of the Diocese of 
Alabama the Rev. Nicholas Hamner Cobbs, D. D., 
rector of St. Paul's Church, Cincinnati. Dr. Cobbs 
accepted the election. He was consecrated during 
the General Convention at Philadelphia, on October 
20, 1844, the Rt. Rev. Philander Chase being Conse- 
crator, and Bishops Brownell of Connecticut, Onder- 
donk of New York, Ives of North Carolina, and Smith 
of Kentucky, joining in the L,aying-on-of-Hands. 

The Church in Alabama now had a head. 



PART SECOND. 



The Episcopate of Bishop Cobbs. 




-,. 




NICHOLAS HAMNER COBBS 

FIRST BISHOP OF ALABAMA 

(From a daguerreotype taken in 1850 and now in possession of Mrs. A. P. Hogan, 
of Tuskaloosa). 



CHAPTER I. 

BISHOP COBBS' EARLY LIFE. 

(C T S that the worst they say about me ? I can tell 
1 them marry worse things about myself. ' ' 
This was Bishop Cobbs' only response to a bit of 
malicious backbiting that was once brought to his 
attention. It was an answer inspired not by r^pocrisy 
but by genuine humility. It gives the key-note of the 
character of Alabama's first Bishop. 

A brief survey of his early life will reveal the spirit- 
ual pow T er which made such repression and sincere 
meekness possible. 

Nicholas Hamner Cobbs was born in Bedford county, 
Virginia, on February 5, 1795. In boyhood and 3 T outh 
he knew nothing of Church influences. The clergy 
were few and far between. The only preaching that 
he heard in his minority w T as the hair-raising exhorting 
of an ultra-Calvinistic divine, who held forth in the 
neighborhood in a style strongly resembling that of 
Jonathan Edwards in the moments of his most lurid 
word-painting. That such distortion of the Gospel 
neither cast a dark shadow over his faith nor drove 
him into the prevailing unbelief and defiance was due 
largely to the devotion of his mother, by whom he w T as 
so carefully nurtured. 

From his baptism in infancy to the day of his ordi- 
nation he never joined in the Church services; but 
many of the treasures of English theology were scat- 

43 



44 HISTORY OF THE 



tered among the private libraries, and to these young 
Cobbs, as " the school-master, " had free access. His 
pedagogic duties, which began at the early age of 
seventeen, gave him the mental discipline requisite to 
profitable study of theology, and the theological litera- 
ture that he studied in the intervals of school-room 
work, gave definiteness to the vague feelings of pietism 
which passed current for religion. He worked out his 
own salvation, and after twelve years of hard study 
he offered himself, when twenty-nine years of age, to 
Bishop Moore for ordination. 

He was not even confirmed, but his zeal, his learn- 
ing, and his piety were so marked that on the very 
day — May 23, 1824 — on which he was confirmed and 
admitted to the Hoty Communion he was made a 
deacon. This took place at Staunton, Va. , where the 
Diocesan Convention was in session. In after years 
Bishop Cobbs related that often in the lonely horse- 
back journey from Bedford to Staunton his natural 
timidity rose within him like a flood and almost made 
him determine to return home. The Angel of the 
Lord opposed Balaam going to curse, and urged on 
Cobbs going to bless. 

Immediately after his ordination Mr. Cobbs returned 
to his home as the place marked out for the exercise 
of his ministry. He had married his fifteen-year-old 
cousin three years before, and the freedom of a celi- 
bate was not for him. Five days in the week he 
worked in the school-room, and two days in the week 
he preached the Gospel. He had to gather his own 
congregation. It was a virgin soil, but his work pros- 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 45 

pered, and at the end of two years he had built two 
brick churches where none had stood before. Already 
his labors were so blessed that many larger congrega- 
tions were inviting him to come to them, but he felt 
that the care of Bedford was, at least in its infant state, 
of divine obligation. 

So for thirteen years he remained in this one charge, 
until, at the request of the officers of the University of 
Virginia, the Diocesan Convention appointed him 
Chaplain to the University.* Though he had for 
eight years been a deputy to the General Convention, 
his manner was so modest and retiring, and his esti- 
mate of his own ability so low, that to some these char- 
acteristics seemed to render him unfit to cope with the 
aggressive materialistic spirit of the University. Yet 
they proved his most powerful natural agents in dis- 
arming opposition and giving point to his simple re- 
cital of the wondrous old story of the love of Christ. 

On one occasion, when he was dining at a friend's 
house, a student of the University amused himself, 
after under-graduate fashion, and thought that he was 
amusing others, by jokes that reflected upon the cler- 
ical vocation. Mr. Cobbs said nothing and did not 
manifest the least annoyance; but as the company 
was about to rise from the table he went up to the 
young man, and, taking his hand in a friendly man- 
ner, said: "My young friend, I am greatly obliged 
to you for your admonitions. We of the clergy sel- 
dom have our faults told us so plainly, and I trust 
that I shall profit by your discourse." The }^outh's 

*Dr. George F. Cushman's Memorial Sermon, page 17. 



46 HISTORY OF THE 



discomfiture was complete, 5-et he had no ground for 
anger; and the incident gave the chaplain an influ- 
ence that no amount of preaching could have brought. 
His chaplaincy marked a new era in the history of the 
institution. 

But the time had come when Mr. Cobbs must exer- 
cise his great power in a wider field. St. Paul's 
Church, Petersburg, had for some time been a source 
of much anxiety to Bishop Meade, who himself took 
charge of the parish for a few months until he could 
find some one peculiarly adapted to so difficult a field. 
He decided that Mr. Cobbs was the man, and called 
upon him to come to Petersburg, not as a promotion 
but as a duty. 

God's blessing attended Mr. Cobbs' four years rec- 
torship (1839-43), and a great material and spiritual 
harvest was reaped. 

But circumstances arose which, in 1843, gave him 
no choice but to leave both Petersburg and Virginia. 
Bishop Moore had died in 1841, and Bishop Meade 
had become diocesan. The Assistant Bishop's theo- 
logical status had been fixed when he called Mr. Cobbs 
to Petersburg, but Mr. Cobbs' views while unequivo- 
cally held were not yet so positively set forth. The 
quietude of Bedford and the intellectuality of Char- 
lottesville had furnished him opportunity and incentive 
to study, and he had been growing stronger and broader 
and deeper in both spirit and intellect. But this growth , 
instead of degenerating into a vagueness of view that 
leaves all things unsolved and declares that Christians 
are but seekers after truth, made his grasp of the 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 47 

Faith delivered once for all more definite and uncom- 
promising. He held to the visibility and divine origin 
and authority of the Church, and he had come to say 
that next to his love and reverence for Christ, who 
was the Head, was his love and reverence for the 
Church, which was the Bod}*. With such sentiments, 
he could not but yield the greatest respect to the Book 
of Common Prayer and abide to the full extent by the 
directions of the Rubrics. He believed that Friday 
was a fast day of obligation. He held that, since 
especial Collects, Epistles and Gospels had been in- 
corporated by the Church into the Prayer Book, the 
Church's manifest intention was that the Feast Days 
should be observed by especial services. Therefore 
when he went to Petersburg he revived the long- 
neglected observance of the Church's appointed feast- 
days and fast-days. 

By some of the good people of Virginia, and among 
them was Bishop Meade, this innocent and pious re- 
formation was held to be a glaring rag of Ritualism, 
and an infallible sign of Romish tendencies. Mr. 
Cobbs' own parishioners found no fault with their 
rector. But elsewhere some of the laity complained. 
A few 3*oung deacons sniffed, as only deacons can 
sniff. But the Bishop made his displeasure perceptible 
throughout the national Church. He had requested 
the diocese to elect an Assistant Bishop. Dr. * Cobbs 
was respected by all the clergy and almost idolized by 
the laity, and to him the e} T es of a majority of the 
Diocesan Convention of 1843 instinctively turned. So 

* Geneva College had conferred the D. D. on him in 184.2. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 



manifestly was Dr. Cobbs the all-but-unanimous choice 
of the delegates that the Bishop, in view of what he 
deemed a prospective calamity to the Church in Vir- 
ginia, felt it incumbent upon him to oppose with all 
his power the selection of a person of such unsound 
theological and ecclesiastical views. The Bishop's 
action left no doubt as to Mr. Cobbs' proper course. 
Through the Rev. Mr. Atkinson, afterwards Bishop of 
North Carolina, he announced that his name must not 
be placed before the Convention. In a short while he 
accepted a call to St. Paul's Church, Cincinnati, Bishop 
Meade's unprecedented action rendering it impossible 
for him to remain longer in Virginia. 

Scarcely had he entered upon his new work, when 
the clergy of the diocese of Indiana elected him their 
Bishop. The laity did not concur in this election, 
as they deemed his acceptance improbable for many 
reasons. In the following year he was elected Bishop 
of Alabama. Not until after his death was it known, 
even to his family, that in 1841 the House of Bishops 
had elected him Missionary Bishop of the Republic of 
Texas, an election which was never sent down to the 
dioceses, as the lower House thought it inexpedient 
to assume responsibility for Church extension in that 
country. 

It is a record seldom equalled, and disclosing a char- 
acter and a reputation seldom paralleled, that a pres- 
byter should within the period of four years have the 
eyes of three dioceses and of the Episcopate of the 
general Church turned upon him as one fit to be a 
Bishop in the household of the Faith. 



CHAPTER II. 

MISSIONARY CHARACTER OF THE COUNTRY. 

BISHOP COBBS proceeded to Alabama immedi- 
ately after his consecration, and entered actively 
upon his episcopal duties in November, 1844. 

His work, he soon found, was distinctly the work 
of an evangelist and pioneer. 

In the Tennessee valley two small congregations 
had been established, at Tuscumbia and Florence, 
four years before. The church at Huntsville, which 
had had a nominal existence for ten years, had just 
celebrated its first birthday as an organization. These 
three congregations, not numbering fifty communi- 
cants among them, were the only representatives of 
the Church in all that portion of the state north of a 
line drawn due east and west through Tuskaloosa. 
In Mobile, Christ Church was enjoying that numerical 
and financial growth that has ever been its good for- 
tune. It was the one strong parish in the diocese; 
and rivers, marshes, and pine forests separated it by 
three hundred miles and two weeks of travel from its 
nearest neighbor. 

All other congregations of the diocese were, without 
exception, in the Black Belt, or middle district of the 
state. Their territory extended, in wedge shape, from 
east to west, with the edge resting upon the Chatta- 
hoochee river. 

This peculiar stratification of the diocese rendered 
49 



50 HISTORY OF THK 



it practical^ a Missionar}- Jurisdiction, whose three 
component parts were separated by great reaches of 
country either indifferent or hostile to the Church. 
Not five hundred communicants, whites and blacks, 
lived in the entire state, and, one-half of the entire 
number residing in Mobile, it is plain that the re- 
mainder of the diocese was thinly sown. 

Nor was the prospect of immediate growth at all 
promising. Only eight clergymen — six outside of 
Mobile — were at work, and they necessarily divided 
their energy among so man3 r interests, and expended 
their strength in the fatigue of so much travel in priv- 
ate convej^ances over bad roads to minister to widely 
separated flocks, that the hope of the most sanguine 
was but to hold and develop the already established 
congregations. Demopolis, Livingston, and St. John's 
in the Prairies received the ministrations of the same 
clergyman. Another served two country churches 
forty-five miles apart, one in Dallas County and one 
in Lowndes. Tuskaloosa was, a little later, conjoined 
with Elyton, fifty miles awa}^. Another clergyman 
worked the wide-extending field in Bast Alabama, 
comprising Yongesboro, Seale, Girard, Auburn, Tus- 
kegee, Tallassee, La Fayette, and West Point. In 
Southwest Alabama still another did the work at St. 
Stephen's, Bladon Springs, Butler, and Pushmataha.* 
Some fields even broader than these are comprised in 
a single missionary station today, but comfortable 

*Stated services have not for many years been held in any 
of these places, except Auburn. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 5 1 

steamboats, good railroads, and fair highways make 
them actually much more compact. 

As weak as the diocese was numerically, it was 
even weaker financially. Bishop Cobbs came to Ala- 
bama on a salary of $1,500 a year and traveling ex- 
penses,* and, although in 1849 the Bishop had by un- 
tiring work increased the number of clergymen to what 
was the phenomenal number of eighteen, the number 
of congregations to twenty-six, and the number of com- 
municants to more than seven hundred, yet even then 
the diocese felt able to increase his salary to onl} T 
$1,750; and this sum included his traveling expenses. 

Ministerial salaries were as pitiably small as was 
the Episcopal salary, and were, in many cases, eked 
out by school-teaching. One of the largest parishes 
— a parish that enjoyed this distinction, though having 
fewer than twenty communicants — promised its rector 
$300 a year, and intimated the possibility of raising 
another hundred by the efforts of the women in fairs 
and mite-meetings. In some cases parishes would 
not promise their minister any specified sum, but 
would make the very commercial agreement that the 
weekly offertory — come rain, come shine — should 
constitute the rector's salary. This plan, while ob- 
viously open to serious objection — calling for more 
trustfulness in parson than in people, making the rec- 
tor an easy target for congregational caprice, and ren- 
dering it easy for uncourageous parishes to rid them- 

*His traveling expenses in 1845 were $60. Generally he 
traveled in his own buggy. When he used the stage he was 
not permitted to pay fare. 



52 CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 

selves of undesirable ministers by the cruel method of 
" starving them out " — did not work at all badly in 
comparison with the too frequentl} 7 experienced sys- 
tem of promising much and irregularly paying little. 
Indeed, those clergymen upon whom the plan was 
tried bore witness that the salary averaged well, and, 
coming in regularly, allowed them to settle their 
grocery bills punctually.* 

The meager support given the clergy was partly 
excusable by the necessity laid upon many congrega- 
tions of building for themselves houses of worship: 
but, after all due allowance is made, the great cause 
still remains: the laity were unwilling to test the 
Lord's promise to them that bring their tithes into 
His storehouse. Their penuriousness towards the 
Church resulted from their false, self-erected standard 
of spirituality, and felt exculpated by comparison 
of their own ministers' salaries with the salaries of 
neighboring Baptist preachers and Methodist circuit- 
riders. Refusing most properly to set up money as a 
yard-stick of spirituality, they refused most improper- 
ly to accept it as a weather-vane. 

*Convention Journal for 1852, page 10. 



CHAPTER III. 

MISSIONARY SOWINGS. 

HAD a narrower man than Doctor Cobbs become 
Bishop of Alabama in 1844, it is probable that 
finding the Church alreacry established in Mobile, 
Tuskaloosa, Greensboro, Montgomery, Hunts ville, 
and Selma, and a few smaller places, he would have 
directed every effort towards the upbuilding of the 
congregations alread} T established. The motive would 
have been, to make them strong centers of operations 
in the following generation. The motto would have 
been, " Concentrate." 

But as it was Bishop Cobbs that came to the over- 
sight of Alabama, such was not the course pursued. 
The new Bishop's mind reverted to the scattering of 
the Church from Jerusalem and the consequent spread 
of the Faith. He felt that men, not parishes, were 
the proper centers of operations. His motto was, 
" Diffuse." 

In following the line of endeavor suggested by this 
word, he did not neglect his duty to the flocks already 
gathered. He visited these first of all. He acquainted 
himself with them and made them acquainted with 
himself. When he visited a congregation it was not 
his chief object to get out of town at the earliest oppor- 
tunity that decency allowed. He visited the sick and 
the afflicted at their homes. He catechized the chil- 
dren in Sunday School. He gathered the Negroes and 



54 HISTORY OF THE 



preached them the Gospel. He met with vestries and 
discussed their present difficulties and future prospects. 
He counselled with the clerg} T as brother with brother. 
Not one of a Bishop's mam- duties to a congregation 
did he neglect or willingly forego. He was never 
happier than when the parish minister unfolded an 
extensive Episcopal program for the visitation. 

But he was not satisfied that a Bishop's duty to his 
diocese ended with even the most faithful visitation of 
established congregations. He was not content merely 
to ' ' fill his appointments ' ' and go back home. As he 
passed through the country he sought all possible in- 
formation about isolated Church families and about 
towns wherein the Church's voice had never been 
heard. The former he either visited himself or brought 
to the attention of the nearest clergyman.* The latter 
he always visited and tested for their ability to receive 
the Church. In the earlier } r ears of his Episcopate 
he visited many such places. Willingness to hear 
him was as warm an invitation as he cared to receive, 
and this willingness became yearly more and more 
pronounced among the people of all denominations. 
Truly insignificant was the unvisited hamlet lying 
within fifty or one hundred miles of the Bishop's line 
of travel. Among the first towns and settlements in 
which he made experiment were Tuskegee, Marion, 
Burton's Hill, Surnterville, Northport, Mount Meigs, 
Jacksonville and Montevallo. At every one of these 



* The Bishop kept a register of such persons, and in i860 
had 103 communicants on this list. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 55 

places a congregation was established, and, Tuskegee 
and Northport excepted, established permanently. 

The almost uniform success that he met with in 
these pioneer visits impressed deeply upon the Bishop 
the need for more clergy. He felt that, do what he 
could, his hands were tied unless he could leave work- 
men in the field. In 1846 he pointed, in addition to 
the towms just mentioned, to Livingston, Lowndesboro, 
Hayneville, Wetumpka, Eufaula, La Fayette, Talla- 
dega and Tuscumbia as favorable points for missionary 
work, in case he could secure missionaries. How true 
his foresight is indicated by the fact that in all these 
places but La Fayette and Wetumpka congregations 
are toda}^ living more or less fully the life of the One 
Body. 

The Bishop's missionary zeal inspired the other 
clergy, and right heartily did they follow the lead of 
him who said not "Go!" but "Come!" The rector 
of St. John's, Montgomery, took upon himself the 
missionary charge of Mount Meigs in Montgomery 
county, Robinson Springs in Autauga county, Tus- 
kegee in Macon county, Hayneville in Lowndes 
county, St. David's in Dallas county, and Wetumpka 
(now in Elmore county). A little later, when St. 
Andrew's, Hayneville, had grown to the stature of 
a parish, its minister watched over the missions at 
Lowndesboro and Benton in Lowndes county, and 
Pleasant Hill in Dallas county. In like manner, 
points about Huntsville, Greensboro, Selma, and 
Mobile, received ministrations with considerable fre- 
quency and regularity. 



56 CHURCH IN A LABAMA. 

It is true that in not a few cases no permanent 
congregation was formed. There was much going to 
and fro of population. So young was the state, that 
Churchmen, like others, did not feel any hereditary 
love for their homes, and were easily persuaded to try 
new fields. Old churches passed away, and their 
congregations dissolved. But the individual mem- 
bers appeared elsewhere, and, though their personal 
labors and pecuniary interest were greatly reduced, 
the3^ were not entirely lost to the Church. 

At any rate the missionary work that was done 
among the villages and on the plantations was done 
faithfully, and subsequently bore much fruit. The 
kaleidoscopic changes in town and country congrega- 
tions, which for awhile seemed to proclaim the vanity 
of all the labors ministerial that had gone before, in 
fact brought about a homogeneity of the entire diocese 
that has in later days been a chief source of strength. 



CHAPTER IV. 

DIFFICULTIES AND DISCOURAGEMENTS. 

GREAT as were the geographical difficulties that 
beset the Church's growth, the theological 
difficulties were greater. 

Marked distrust pervaded the community as to the 
evangelical and spiritual character of the Church. 
The Oxford Movement and the Tracts for the Times 
were not in sufficient perspective for men to judge 
rightly of their tendencies. ' ' Puseyism ' ' was a bogy 
that frightened many men, not merely those within 
the Church, but multitudes without it. It was felt 
that the Anglican communion was, somehow T , on trial 
for attempted liaison with Rome. In 1844 the Gen- 
eral Convention had been importuned to reprehend 
and condemn ' ' the serious errors in doctrine which 
have within a few years been introduced and exten- 
sively promulgated by means of tracts, the press, 
and the pulpit." This the General Convention had 
declined to do, and its declaration that ''the Church 
is not responsible for the errors of individuals ' ' was 
taken as an evasion of the matter — which it undoubt- 
edly was — and a confession of sympathy with the 
new-born evils — which it undoubtedly was not. 

Newman, Wilberforce, Manning, Faber, and Ward, 
chief exponents of the so-called Catholic Renascence, 
seemed to declare the true character of the movement 
by moving into the Church of Rome. In America, 
5 57 



58 HISTORY OF THE 



too, Romanism was beginning to lift its head, encour- 
aged by the great influx of Irish immigrants. Bishop 
Ives, the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of North Caro- 
lina, after a mental struggle which, in the course of 
several years, showed itself in the most remarkable 
vacillation, at length tendered his allegiance as a lay- 
man to the Bishop of Rome. Others accompanied 
and followed him. 

It was a natural result of these defections that 
throughout the American nation Protestant Chris- 
tianity felt an increased distrust of the Church, and 
that in this decade the Church's growth was far less 
in proportion than the growth of the country. Mis- 
taking the nature of the disease, the " Memorialists " 
of 1853 — numbering among themselves the future 
Bishops M. A. DeWolfe Howe, G. T. Bedell, and A. 
Cleveland Coxe, and the distinguished presbyters 
William Augustus Muhlenberg, Alexander H. Vin- 
ton, John Henry Hobart, and Francis Vinton — 
ascribed this slow growth to our ecclesiastical polity 
and liturgical worship. 

But Bishop Cobbs was not panic-stricken. That 
others had abused what was good did not make him 
therefore refuse it. He did not protect himself from 
suspicion by indulging in wholesale denunciation of 
the Oxford movement and its after effects. While 
others would fain have conciliated a caviling sectari- 
anism by a vandalism of order and rite that, after all, 
would not have produced any better understanding or 
closer affiliation, he quite contentedly allowed men to 
call him " a semi- Papist " for holding unwaveringly 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 59 

to the old paths. He exhorted the clergy ' ' to adhere 
to their own principles and usages with uncompro- 
mising firmness, and always to perform the worship of 
the Church with the most scrupulous observance of 
the rubrics and canons. ' ' At the same time he urged 
against an increasing formalism, and insisted that the 
only way by which the clergy of Alabama could pro- 
tect the good character of the Church in Alabama was 
by clearly and explicitly setting forth the evangelical 
principles of the Church as contained in Prayer Book 
and Homilies — the corruption of human nature, justi- 
fication by faith in the merits and righteousness of the 
IyOrd Jesus Christ, the need of a renovation of heart, 
of the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit, and of 
a dutiful obedience manifested not only in the observ- 
ance of ordinances, but in the keeping of command- 
ments, and in the fruits of righteousness and holiness 
— if only this should be the faithful and consistent 
teaching of the clergy, the issue would not long re- 
main doubtful. 

This would have been true but for other considera- 
tions, which cannot remain unnoticed: 

The outside world was not moving toward the 
Church. Men were not hungering and thirsting for 
a better and purer form of religion than that which 
they already enjoyed. What they had they really 
enjoyed; and enjoyment was the popular conception 
of Christian perfection. Indifferentism wore the thin 
veil of liberality. Into villages and settlements any 
religious society was welcomed if it did not expressly 
or by necessary implication question the authority and 



6o HISTORY OF THE 



doctrine of prior bodies. Alabama was like the 
Roman Pantheon, wherein every God was welcomed 
but the Christian's God, who was rejected because He 
was " a jealous God." 

Inoculated with the virus of this spurious liberality, 
many of the Church's own children grew up without 
adequate ideas of the high dignity of the Church, 
and her ministry and sacraments. They were igno- 
rant of her doctrines, careless of her sanction, indif- 
ferent to her privileges, neglectful of her ordinances; 
and finally, by inevitable consequence, turned their 
backs on their spiritual mother and went off into 
schism or worldliness. Their unwillingness to learn 
the teachings of the Church brought on inability to 
receive them. Neglecting the ministrations of the 
Church, they next denied her unity, holiness, catho- 
licity, and Apostolicity ; and finding the teaching of 
the clergy out of touch with their own raw conclu- 
sions, denounced their erstwhile teachers as narrow 
and uncharitable. 

For another hindrance the clergy themselves were 
to blame. They remained in their own parishes too 
continuously without holding converse and exchang- 
ing experiences with fellow clergymen, and thus failed 
to give and to receive the help that the parish priest 
so much needs to prevent either his peculiar trials 
from cowing him or his little successes from puffing 
him. The relation of paroikia to dioikia, of parish to 
household, seems to have been imperfectly appre- 
hended. Attendance on annual Conventions was mis- 
erably small and discouraging. It was impossible to 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 6 1 

bring the whole diocese to any concerted plan of ac- 
tion when only one-half the clergy attended the 
annual Conventions. This was an evil that the Bishop 
earnestly sought to remove ; but, though a measure of 
success attended his efforts, improvement was not per- 
manent until very shame at the absence of two-thirds 
of their order from the Convention of 1858 made the 
clergy themselves determine to reform. It could not 
but be a drag on the Church that, with twenty- seven 
clergy entitled to a vote and more than fifty congre- 
gations entitled to representation, her Convention 
numbered, not eighty-five delegates, but only twenty- 
nine. 

The migratory disposition of the clergy was another 
substantial hindrance. In the conventional year 
1847-8 six clergymen removed from one parish to 
another or left the diocese. Of those who had elected 
Dr. Cobbs Bishop four years before only one remained 
in the diocese — the Rev. N. P. Knapp — and he had 
removed to another parish. In the five years, 1853 58, 
sixteen of the twenty-seven clergy resident the first 
year of the period left the diocese, and of the eleven 
that remained only six remained in uninterrupted 
charge of their respective congregations. These con- 
stant migrations were unfavorable to Church growth, 
for in removing from one parish to another, even 
though remaining in the diocese, the clergy lost much 
of their slowly acquired influence, which they could 
neither transfer to their successors nor carry to their 
new parishes. The injury thus inflicted upon old con- 



62 HISTORY OF THE 



gregations was considerable; upon new ones it was 
incalculable. 

Other serious obstacles demand passing remark. 
The Bishop's health was never good, and it was only 
by sheer force of will that he kept going. But even 
will power has occasionally to succumb. In 1847-8 
the Bishop visited few congregations, confirming in 
the aggregate not quite two-score persons. Later in 
1848, his own sickness in Huntsville, from June to 
November, and sickness in his family in Tuskaloosa, 
prevented him from making any visitations. For one 
reason or another several of the clerg}^ were deposed 
within a short period. In 1846 the Rev. S. S. Lewis, 
long a tower of strength despite the ravages of con- 
sumption, was obliged to retire from work; two years 
later he passed away. In 1850 more than one-half 
the congregations were without ministerial services. 
In 1 85 1 Mr. Lay and Mr. Morrison, in Huntsville and 
Montgomery*, were entirely disabled by ill health. 
A similar reason carried Mr. Massey awa}* from 
Mobile five months, and Mr. Cushman from Seale and 
Auburn nearly an entire year; and an overturning 
stage coach so injured the Bishop in his right shoul- 
der that he was disabled for a considerable period. 
In 1854 another prince in Israel, the Rev. N. P. 
Knapp, rested from his labors. Fierce conflict be- 
tween the rector and the vestry of Christ Church, 
Tuskaloosa, and a subsequent parochial schism of a 
year's duration, gave the enemy much occasion to 
blaspheme. Yellow fever devastated Montgomery for 
two months each of this and the two ensuing years. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 63 

In the latter year, 1855, Klyton, Birmingham's fore- 
runner, summed up in one sentence the obstacle that 
to less extent dampened ardor and chilled faith in 
many other portions of the diocese : ' ' The Church 
service has not been celebrated in this parish for 
about two years. ' ' 

Yet throughout this period, which from one point 
of view seems to have been full of doubt, half- 
heartedness, and gloom, betokening fast-approaching 
disintegration, the Bishop walked firmly and worked 
indefatigably, strong in his conviction that the life- 
giving Spirit of God would, in His own good time, 
move through the chaos. 



CHAPTER V. 

WITH LOINS BEGIRT. 

THE history of the Church in Alabama in the 
'Forties and 'Fifties is not always to be pursued as 
in gloom and misgiving. We may speak of the reward 
of faithfulness and the sifting of the sunshine into 
the darkness. 

While churches were vacant, clergy itinerant, 
Churchmen despondent, and sectarians sibilant, signs 
of increased life-pulsations and stronger heart-throbs 
began to appear here and there. The second year of 
this episcopate (1846) saw, in Mobile, the beginning 
of the " Free Episcopal Church," which, under the 
careful ministration of the Rev. B. M. Miller, soon 
became an established congregation, known as Trinity 
Church; in Huntsville, the erection of a small brick 
church-building, which enabled the congregation to 
vacate the court house; and in Eutaw, the subscrip- 
tion of two thousand dollars towards the building of 
St. Stephen's Church. The clergy list had increased 
in the number of active workers to sixteen. Already 
there were seven candidates for the ministry. 

In the following year (1847) a future Bishop, Henry 

C. Lay, then only twenty-three years old, became 

rector of the Church of the Nativity, Huntsville, and 

soon had impressed his strong young personality on 

the entire diocese. 

The yearly confirmations did not increase apprecia- 
64 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 65 

bly for ten years, remaining constantly at about one 
hundred ; but at the end of that period they suddenfy 
rose to two hundred, and seldom afterward fell below 
this number. 

By immigration the communicant-roll grew with 
greater rapidity. While it took four years (1849- 
1853) to grow from 729 to 1,019, the same increase 
was gained in the next two years (1 853-1 855). 

The clergy were following the Bishop's lead in 
caring for isolated families, and were enabled the better 
to do this by the constant increase in their numbers. 
Twelve clergymen were at work in 1844, sixteen in 
1850, and twenty-two in 1855. Every Church family 
was looked upon as the possible nucleus of a congre- 
gation, and not infrequently the possible became the 
actual. Six years of careful nursing so developed 
the diocese that, in 1852, the increase had been four- 
fold, and the congregations numbered seventy-eight. 

In the autumn of 1851 the Bishop felt that the best 
interests of the diocese required him to reside in 
Montgomery. When he came to Alabama Tuskaloosa 
was the capital, and he made that place his home be- 
cause there his influence told for the most. From the 
capital radiated the three stage lines, to Montgomery 
{via Selma), Huntsville, and Columbus, Miss., and 
by these, the trunk-lines of early Alabama, Episcopal 
visitations and missionary excursions were rendered 
more practicable. But when the capital was moved 
to Montgomery, in 1847, Tuskaloosa was side-tracked, 
and facilities of intercourse with the provinces became 
quite poor. After suffering this inconvenience for 



66 HISTORY OF THE 



five 3'ears, the Bishop yielded to the same considera- 
tions that had carried him to Tuskaloosa, and, in the 
spring of 1852, removed to the new capital. Upon 
his removal the Churchmen of Montgomery presented 
him with three thousand dollars towards the purchase 
of a home. The Bishop bought a house and several 
acres of land in the edge of town and settled himself 
there. The long, low red brick house that was his 
home thenceforward is still occupied by the family of 
one of his sons, ex-State Treasurer John I,. Cobbs, 
who as a boy accompanied his father on many a jour- 
ney through the diocese. 

So soon as the awkwardness of living in an out-of- 
the-way place had been disposed of, Bishop Cobbs 
showed the ultimate possibilities of his vigor. In 
1 85 1-2 the amount of work that he accomplished far 
surpassed that of any preceding year. A synopsis of 
his work — exclusive of sermonic, epistolary, execu- 
tive, and pastoral labors, which cannot be synoptized, 
but of all which he did a large amount — will not be 
unprofitable reading. 

From Montgomery as his starting-point he made 
his visitations in four distinct series. In the first 
series he went directly from Montgomery to Cahaba, 
where he preached on May 15. The next day he was 
at Selma, fifteen miles northeast, where he preached 
and confirmed two persons. The overturning of the 
stagecoach next day, and his consequent injuries, 
delayed him more than two weeks in his progress. 
On Whitsunday, however, he was at work again, 
preaching at Tuskaloosa in the morning in Christ 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 67 

Church and in the afternoon in St. Philip's chapel 
to the Negroes. Thence he visited Eutaw, thirty-five 
miles southwest; went twelve miles further south into 
the " Fork of Greene," one of the most fertile regions 
of the whole South; thence into Sumter county to 
Gainesville, thirty miles northwest; thence to Sum- 
terville, ten miles southwest; and on to Livingston, 
ten miles due south. From Livingston he crossed 
the Tombigbee back into Greene county, and, visiting 
another portion of the "Fork," known as Burton's 
Hill,* went on to Tuskaloosa. Here he remained 
three weeks, preaching frequently and catching up 
with his correspondence. Throughout the next month 
he was working in Perry and Marengo counties, visit- 
ing successively Marion, St. John's-in-the-Prairies, 
and Woodville (now Uniontown), and remaining, not 
twelve hours, but an entire week in each place — much 
after the manner, and much with the success, of St. 
Paul. The next three months — it was now August — 
were spent in Tuskaloosa, and then the visitation of 
the northern portion of the diocese began. Klyton 
was the first stop, and then came a necessarily long 
jump through a sparsely settled country to the Ten- 
nessee River, where the route was, in order, Hunts- 
ville, Athens, Decatur, Courtland, Florence, and Tus- 
cumbia. Passing back to Middle Alabama, he stopped 
at Tuskaloosa long enough to preach twice, and then 
went on down into Marengo county, where he began 

* It was from this place that St. Mark's Church, Boligee, 
formerly known as "St. Mark's, Fork of Greene," was re- 
moved. 



68 HISTORY OF THE 



his visitations at Prairieville and Demopolis. His 
further work in this district was interrupted by his 
necessary presence at the consecration in Augusta, 
Georgia, of Bishop Rutledge of Florida; but while on 
his way to Georgia he visited Jacksonville, and on his 
return journey preached and confirmed at Talladega. 
The broken thread of Middle Alabama visitations 
was taken up at Selma, on October 22, and then the 
Bishop began to work eastward, taking in, on his 
route, Lowndesboro, Montgomery, Auburn, St. John's- 
in-the- Wilderness (Russell count}'), and Eufaula. He 
then made a long jump to those places that he visited 
earlier in the year, going to Greensboro, Tuskaloosa, 
Greene Springs Academy, back to Tuskaloosa, Bethsa- 
lem (in the Fork of Greene) , and Eutaw. Two months 
after his former visits he returned to Greensboro, to 
make a deacon, and to Tuskaloosa, to officiate at the 
marriage of a daughter. After a three weeks' sojourn 
in Tuskaloosa, he went to Montgomery for a few days, 
and returned to Tuskaloosa for a stay of two weeks, 
remaining, on his way bade, a week each at Selma 
and Greensboro. He was at Montgomery throughout 
Lent, assisting the rector in services and pastoral work, 
preaching for him, and making experimental visits to 
Wetumpka and Robinson's Springs. Immediately af- 
ter Easter he went to Mobile, worked there two weeks, 
and returned home by way of the Dallas county 
churches, St. David's, St. Peter's, and St. Paul's. 

It will be seen, from this itinerary, that the four 
series of visitations were made, the first in the west, 
the second in the north, the third in the east, and the 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 69 

fourth in the south of the state. Confirmation classes 
were uniformly small, seldom consisting of more than 
two persons, in only two cases exceeding four, and in 
one-half the congregations numbering only one. 

The Bishop testified that in his visitations he was 
no stranger to mortifications, privations, and dangers; 
not the least of which was the occasional necessity of 
camping four days in the rain on the bank of a con- 
stantly rising river, waiting for a steamboat that might 
have come at any hour but did not come at all. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE CHURCH BUILDING ERA. 

ABOUT 1850 one great cause of small confirmation 
classes began to disappear. So long as the con- 
gregation in any town, village, or settlement was com- 
pelled to worship in a dwelling house, many that were 
kindly disposed towards the Church but were not 
strong in the Faith declined to join their fortunes with 
those of the new-coine Christian body. For aught that 
they knew its local existence was but ephemeral, and 
they did not care to be identified with an unsuccessful 
ecclesiastical experiment. 

It is true that this very houseless and hopeless con- 
dition of many congregations was long their protec- 
tion against the gnat-like persecution that sectarian 
villagers are so well skilled to practice ; and it is 
equally true that so soon as these congregations began 
to achieve a local habitation disdainful or pitying tol- 
erance was succeeded by aggressive opposition, char- 
acterized more by ignorant fanaticism than by Christ- 
like zeal. Sometimes, it must be confessed, this prej- 
udice was deepened and intensified with good reason 
by the intemperate sectarianism of a new-fledged 
parish. A young clergyman met a child of Methodist 
parents in the street of a village in Middle Alabama 
and, on ascertaining that the boy had received his 
baptism at the hands of a Methodist preacher, ex- 
claimed pityingly : ' ' Poor child ! Poor benighted 

70 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 7 1 

little heathen ! ' ' The hatred of the Church aroused 
by this speech had not died out a generation later. 

But it was better for the Church that it should grow 
through pain than that it should die through inani- 
tion. Sectarian intolerance injured itself by reducing 
the number of those who would have left the com- 
munion of the Church, and the prospect of permanent 
organization encouraged many to return to their spir- 
itual Mother. 

The same impulse seems to have been felt through- 
out the entire diocese about this time. Within no 
other single decade have so many church buildings 
been erected as in 1850-60. In this period not fewer 
than eighteen congregations built permanent homes 
for themselves. Eleven of these were completed in 
the years 1852, '53, and '54. They were mostly in 
Middle Alabama. Eufaula, Demopolis, Faunsdale, 
Auburn, Macon, Sumterville, Montgomery, Cahaba, 
Burton's Hill, Camden, and IyOwndesboro erected 
substantial houses of worship in the order named ; 
and Christ Church parish, Tuskaloosa, built a chapel 
for its Negro congregation. In South Alabama the 
erection in Mobile of St. John's Church for the 
poor of the southern portion of the city was due to 
the munificence of three liberal parishioners of Christ 
Church — Emanuel Jones, William P. Hammond, and 
John Johnson; St. Mary's was built at Summerville, 
a suburb of Mobile, and St. Paul's at Spring Hill, 
four miles further west. In North Alabama the con- 
gregations at Tuscumbia, Jacksonville, and Hunts- 
ville were well housed before the decade closed. 



72 HISTORY OF THK 



The majority of these churches were quite modest 
in appearance. Only two were of brick — St. John's, 
Montgomery, and the Nativity, Huntsville — and 
these, costing respectively $21,000 and $35,000, were 
built to replace older structures, which had become 
too small for the growing congregations. Every other 
church edifice built at this time, even that of St. 
John's, Mobile, was of wood. 

With the exception of the three new churches in 
Mobile, Montgomery, and Huntsville, the church 
buildings of this decade were capable of seating any- 
where from one hundred to three hundred people, the 
smaller size predominating. Generally the architect- 
ural features, without and within, were devoid of 
beauty, taste, or significance. The designers seem 
to have drunk in their inspiration from Methodist 
houses of worship. * A plain rectangle, barely escaping 
squareness; two doors, dividing the front into three 
equal parts; rectangular windows, with clear glass 
and swinging shutters; a high-eaved, wide-angled 
Corinthian roof; these held the view from the exterior. 
Within, the body of the church was almost a perfect 
cube, with high, flat plastered ceiling; the line of 
beauty was absent, and the acoustics were inevitably 
bad. The chancel, when recess, was a minute, un- 
ventilated box; but usually it was only a platform 
divided from the remainder of the nave by a rail. 
Sometimes the font and sometimes the pulpit stood in 
the exact middle of this platform, hindering, and it 

* Noteworthy exceptions were St. John's, Forkland, and 
St. Ivuke's, Jacksonville, planned by Dr. Upjohn. 



CHURCH IN ALA BAMA. 73 

would seem, hindering symbolically, clear view of the 
altar and unobstructed access to it. Not infrequently 
the reredos was made up of three large panels con- 
taining the Ten Commandments flanked by the Lord's 
Prayer and the Apostles' Creed. Frequently there 
was no lecturn, and the Minister would either kneel 
at the rail or go within the Sanctuary for Morning 
Prayer and Litany as well as for the Holy Communion. 
The pulpit was far above the heads of the congrega- 
tion, and was, in some places, entered only by a flight 
of stairs from the vestry-room, wherein, during the 
singing of the hymn before the sermon, the preacher 
exchanged surplice and stole for black preaching- 
gown and gloves. The choir was placed at the 
farthest distance possible from the Minister, either on 
a low platform between the front doors, or in a gallery 
constructed, as the event proved, for the especial 
privacy of the singers, that they might not, in the 
intervals of repose after their arduous labors, be dis- 
turbed by the devotions of the congregation. Vested 
choirs had been heard of, but it is doubtful whether 
the Minister that suggested their introduction would 
thereafter have received an} 7 more respectful hearing 
than if he had dared preach in his surplice. The 
entire service and all the surroundings were barren of 
beauty and dignity, and if revived today would be 
unendurable to a city congregation — so far away have 
we traveled. In a few T rural congregations some of 
these old customs still linger, but the most pronounced 
are fast fading from memory. 

Of the churches thus built some no longer exist. 



74 CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 

When the stir of war was calmed whole congrega- 
tions had disappeared. Trinity Church, Auburn, was 
almost forgotten. Cahaba was given over to bats 
and owls, the entire white population having emi- 
grated. Summerville's sparse population could reach 
the Mobile churches in twenty minutes by horse-cars, 
and preferring the more ornate services and sermons 
of the city, no longer maintained a separate organiza- 
tion. But in their life-time the churches of the past 
served their purpose. They labored and others have 
entered into their labors. 



CHAPTER VII. 

CONGREGATIONAL GROWTH. 

THE building of churches by newly-established 
congregations was not the only evidence of ec- 
clesiastical growth. Congregations, old and new. 
were alike growing in size. 

Naturally this numerical increase was most per- 
ceptible in Mobile, where the Church had struck her 
roots the deepest. In less than twelve months after 
its erection, St. John's Church was enlarged to meet 
the growth of its congregation, and in the next 3^ear its 
rector presented forty persons for confirmation. In 
Trinity in the same year twent} T -eight were confirmed, 
and in Christ Church sixteen. The following year 
forty-seven were confirmed in St. John's, twenty-nine 
in Christ Church, and twenty-seven in Trinity. Of 
the two hundred and eleven confirmations in the dio- 
cese, more than one-half were in Mobile. Four- 
teen of these were Negroes, members of the newly- 
organized mission of the Good Shepherd. In sub- 
sequent years of the decade these large confirma- 
tion classes remained the rule. St. John's were the 
largest, for that parish was reaping among a people 
not previously touched by the Church. For the next 
five years its annual confirmations averaged nearly 
thirty, Trinity's twenty, and those of Christ Church 
fifteen. Knapp at Christ Church, Massey at Trinity, 
and Ingraham at St. John's were a trio of intellectual 

75 



76 HISTORY OF THE 



and spiritual giants whose contemporaneous work 
was, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, irre- 
sistible. 

Elsewhere parochial growth was, if not so pro- 
nounced, at least healthy and encouraging. In Mont- 
gomery the confirmations averaged about fourteen 
each year, and as early as 1853 St. John's had en- 
rolled more than one hundred communicants. In 
Tuskaloosa, where the rate of growth was nearest 
that of Montgomery, the yearty confirmations aver- 
aged ten, but not till 1859 did the communicants num- 
ber one hundred. Huntsville, Greensboro, and Selma 
come next in order of growth, but the storm of war 
broke over the land ere they, too, became a century. 
In i860 Huntsville had only eighty-eight communi- 
cants, Greensboro seventy-two, and Selma fifty-seven. 

But the strength of the diocese was not then, as now 
it is, relatively so much greater in the cities than in 
the country. Social conditions were unlike those of 
to-day. The most cultured people lived in true baro- 
nial style, far from centers of population. Many 
Churchmen lived in scattered settlements on their 
vast contiguous plantations, remote from railroad and 
telegraph, off the line of stage travel, and reaching 
the outside world by their own conveyances. Of 
Church families thus living not more than five, ten, 
or fifteen miles apart not a few congregations were 
formed; and though, from the nature of the condi- 
tions, numerical progress was either slow or entirely 
absent, yet growth of influence was plainly percepti- 
ble. In Lowndes county, St. Peter's Church; in 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 77 

Marengo, St. Michael's; in Greene, St. Mark's; in 
Dallas, St. David's; in Russell, St. John's-in-the- 
Wilderness; in Madison, St. John's — all these were 
churches set down by the country roadside, and are 
to-day without parallel in all Alabama. One of these 
country congregations equaled in size the present con- 
gregations at Evergreen or Woodlawn. Another was 
as large as is the church at either Troy or Union 
Springs. Another's communicant roll equaled that 
of Marion or Athens to-day. One stood tenth in 
numbers on a roll of seventy- eight congregations. 
Several were larger than were the churches at 
Demopolis, Florence, Uniontown, Eufaula, Camden, 
Lowndesboro, and Auburn. They received the min- 
istrations, not of raw deacons, but of tried and expe- 
rienced men — of Morris, Hanson, Cobbs, the Stick- 
neys, the Smiths, Perdue, Robertson, and Lee. 

Of the encouragement given by the smaller congre- 
gations undoubtedly St. Paul's, Carlowville, is the 
most striking illustration. In 1839 a mere handful of 
communicants formed its congregation. The village 
was a sect-ridden little place, Methodists, Baptists, and 
Presbyterians holding undisputed sway. The Rev. 
F. B. Lee, who was made deacon in this year, came 
directly to Carlowville, and lived and worked in this 
one charge throughout his ministerial life of fifty-seven 
years. The first few years of the congregation's life 
were devoid of special encouragement, but in 1844 the 
mission-station was large enough — though, in truth, 
-no considerable size was demanded — to be admitted as 
a parish. Two years later its first statistical report 



78 HISTORY OF THE 



showed thirty communicants. The net increase of 
the next four years was only four communicants, but 
thereafter increase was marked, the number enrolled 
being, in 1855 forty-nine, and in i860 eight3*-three. 
In this year only six parishes ranked it in size, and of 
these Huntsville outnumbered it by but five commun- 
icants. 

Another small parish of great promise was St. 
Luke's, Cahaba, which was born in the same year as 
St. Paul's, Carlowville. It was first served by the Rev. 
Lucien B. Wright, who divided his time equally be- 
tween this place and Selma. The services were well 
attended from the first, but there was no indication of 
permanent establishment. Still, after four years of 
persevering ministerial work the congregation became 
an entity. That it was a dim and shadowy entity is 
evident from the report made in 1846 by Mr. Wright's 
successor, the Rev. J. H. Linebaugh, on occasion of 
his first visit to the place: " I understand that there 
are perhaps two communicants in the village, and 
many who decidedly prefer the Church. ' ' One of these 
two communicants moved away the next year, but 
his place was filled by the removal of another into the 
town. Two persons were confirmed ; and the ' ' parish ' ' 
now had four communicants. During the next five 
years the number fluctuated between five and ten. 
Ministers changed. Vacancies were of frequent re- 
currence. But a slowly improving state of affairs 
urged patience and perseverance. In 1853 a rectory 
was built, and the Rev. J. M. Mitchell, Bishop Cobbs' 
son-in-law, became the first resident minister. Growth 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 79 

began at once. The number of communicants went 
to fifteen, to twenty- one, to thirty-five, and, in 1859, 
to thirty-seven, its highest number. A five-thousand- 
dollar church was built, paid for, and consecrated. 
The Rev. George F. Cushman, subsequently editor of 
The Churchman, was its rector several years. William 
L. Yancey was for a time a member of the vestry. 
The parish remained prosperous and vigorous so long 
as Cahaba retained its white population. It passed 
away more than twenty years ago, but neither the 
congregation nor the building was lost to the diocese. 
Martin's Station has the building,' and Selma the 
congregation. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE CHURCH'S SLAVE CHILDREN. 

WHILE thus slowly but surely developing her 
strength and influence among the whites of 
Alabama, the Church was not neglecting the slaves 
that came within her purview. 

Dr. Muhlenberg's characteristically Northern mis- 
conception, to which he is said to have given utter- 
ance " wittily "* a decade before,, 
" The stars are the scars 
And the stripes are the wipes 
Of the lash on the Negro's back," 

had little foundation in fact. Forgetting that, aside 
from moral and religious considerations, selfish desire 
to keep their property in good condition would in itself 
be sufficient to prevent slave-holders from maltreating 
their slaves, waiters like Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe 
were fanning sectionalism into a brighter flame by- 
representing rare local conditions as types of universal 
practice. 

But even so they were taken in their own craftiness. 
As Bishop Wilmer subsequently pointed out, the testi- 
mony of " Uncle Tom's Cabin " was a witness to any 
thoughtful man of the peaceful relationship between 
master and slave. " If you want a good, honest, and 
religious servant, seek him among the slaves — find an 

* Life and Work of William Augustus Muhlenberg, by 
Anne Ayres, page 137. 

So 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 8 1 

Uncle Tom; if you want to see a glorious specimen of 
womanly loveliness, seek her among the slave-holders 
— find an Eva; and keep every Down-Easter from 
having any power over the poor creatures."* 

In truth both the physical and the spiritual wants of 
the slaves were supplied most generously; and how- 
ever closely the motives of the slave-holders be ex- 
amined, however much it be charged that the slaves' 
bodies were cared for from selfishness rather than from 
philanthropy, and religious ministrations provided 
rather as a moral police-force than as an aid to spirit- 
ual life, the fact remains that in the South the slaves 
were admirably well cared for. 

Especially in Alabama do we find evidence of such 
care. Into the material question it is foreign to the 
purpose of this history to enter; but from the very 
beginning parochial reports tell of Negro children 
baptized and Negro adults confirmed. What other 
religious bodies did for the slaves it is impossible for 
the writer to ascertain; but when it is considered that 
the work of which brief mention is herein made was 
done by the representatives of a body which numbered 
only three thousand souls, out of a total white popu- 
lation of a quarter of a million, and that religious zeal 
was not monopolized by Churchmen, some conception 
is possible of the Christian force brought to bear on 
the ante-bellum Negro. 

In Mobile as early as 1840 the Rev. S. S. Lewis 
was preaching regularly to a congregation of these 



* Bishop Wilmer's Reminiscences, pp. 43 and 44. 



82 HISTORY OF THE 



people, which, consisting at first of six or eight per- 
sons, soon numbered more than one hundred. At 
St. John's-in-the-Prairies twelve were communicants. 
Smaller numbers were attached to most of the other 
congregations. 

When Bishop Cobbs came to Alabama, increased 
attention was given to this work. In 1846 nearly 
one-half the baptisms in the entire diocese were of 
Negroes, and for many years thereafter this propor- 
tion was approximated. In a single year, sixty-eight 
Negro children were baptized in St. David's Church, 
Dallas county. In the ensuing year Mobile, Demop- 
olis, Uniontown and Faunsdale reported one hundred 
and fourteen baptisms of Negroes. In Livingston, 
twenty were baptized in a twelve-month. In Kutaw, 
the following year, thirty-six were baptized. In Hunts- 
ville, in 1854, fifty-one were baptized; and in Fauns- 
dale, the year after, forty-two. In single years Cahaba 
reported the baptism of twenty -two Negro infants, 
Uniontown thirty-two, and Lowndesboro fifty-seven. 
In i860, two hundred and thirteen Negroes were bap- 
tized in the diocese. Very incomplete records show 
that the total of Negro baptisms in Alabama during 
the sixteen years of Bishop Cobbs' episcopate was 
sixteen hundred, of which about three hundred were 
of adults. 

The number of confirmations was far less, for the 
very good reason that many proved themselves after 
baptism to be unfit for admission to the higher privi- 
leges of the Church; whilst the caution and thorough 
instruction necessitated by the weak moral character 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 83 

of the candidates discouraged many more from perse- 
vering to the end. Yet that much good and effective 
work was done among them is evident from the num- 
ber of Negro communicants towards the close of the 
period. They had grown from fewer than fifty in 
1845 to more than one hundred and fifty. They 
formed exclusively the congregations of the Good 
Shepherd, in Mobile, and St. John 's-in-the- Wilder- 
ness, in Russell County. They predominated in St. 
Michael's, Faunsdale, and St. David's, in Dallas 
County. They formed a considerable portion of the 
congregations at Tuskaloosa, where they worshipped 
in a chapel built for their use, and at Spring Hill, in 
Mobile County. At Selma, alone of the larger con- 
gregations, nothing was done for the Negro; this par- 
ish having had, in all its history, only one negro com- 
municant. 

Much of the religious instruction given the slaves 
would have been impossible but for the self-forgetful 
devotion of master and mistress, who would regularly 
on Sunday catechize the laborers and children, and 
in some instances even give a half-holiday that the 
Negroes might attend week-day services. 



CHAPTER IX. 

ENDOWMENT OF THE EPISCOPATE. 

ALTHOUGH the immediate interests of the dio- 
cese, both temporal and spiritual, were thus care- 
fully guarded, its future welfare was not forgotten. 
The period was one of infancy, and, while present 
growth was small, it was felt that the removal of ob- 
stacles to the free exercise of the body would be fol- 
lowed in the years to come by the development of great 
strength. 

The drags upon the Church were four in number: 
i st, The taxation of weak congregations for the sup- 
port of the Bishop, and the consequent corporate 
struggle for daily bread and arrested development in 
good work; 2nd, The inability of many small congre- 
gations to secure the services of a minister, and the 
absence of concerted action to introduce the Church 
into new territory; 3rd, The almost inevitable destitu- 
tion that awaited the families of deceased clergymen, 
and the consequent unrest of the clergy, who were 
often induced, by offers of larger salaries, to leave 
a prosperous field; and, 4th, The ignorance that 
Churchwomen and the future mothers of Churchmen 
manifested of Churchmanship and the Eternal Veri- 
ties as distinguished from the evanescent opinions of 
men and centuries. 

To overcome these obstacles to a higher and freer 

diocesan life, four great undertakings were manifestly 

84 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 85 

necessary: ist, To endow the Episcopate; 2nd, To 
organize the missionary operations; 3rd, To provide 
for the worn-out clergy, and the widows and orphans 
of deceased clergy; and, 4th, To furnish Church ed- 
ucation to the mothers of the next generation. 

These were the four great divisions of work for the 
future so nobly undertaken, so patiently prosecuted, 
and so successfully achieved. The completion of all 
this work in so short a time is the chief glory of the 
ante-bellum Church in Alabama. How each under- 
taking was carried to a successful conclusion shall 
now be considered. 

It has been told that the original foundation of the 
Episcopal endowment fund was the gift by Mr. Jacob 
L,orillard of a township of land in Baldwin County, 
and that this gift was the nucleus around which clus- 
tered unfulfilled promises amounting to four thousand 
dollars. * The Baldwin County land was sold for five 
hundred dollars. As late as 1844 this five hundred 
dollars was the entire endowment fund. 

Though the election of a Bishop entailed an addi- 
tional expense of less than sixteen hundred dollars, 
this small sum was not easily raised by the fourteen 
congregations that comprised the assessable strength 
of the diocese. The attempt of 1845 to ease this bur- 
den was, from its nature, doomed to failure. It sought 
to revive the notes given Mr. Ives during "Flush 
Times," and proposed to credit on any parish's assess- 
ment for the Bishop's salary all the interest that any 
member of that parish would pay on his long-neg- 

* See page 29. 



86 HISTORY OF THE 



lected note. This proposition received no response. 
It was nullified the following year, and was succeeded 
by another fruitless experiment: The Senior War- 
dens of the various parishes were requested to solicit 
subscriptions to the Bishop's Fund. The result was 
not at all startling. Not one cent was raised. 

Meanwhile the original five hundred dollars had 
remained in the hands of the Trustees of the Bishop's 
Fund — Judge B. W. Peck, Mr. Isaac Croom, and Mr. 
H. A. Tayloe — increasing slowly by the yearly addi- 
tion of interest to principal. By 1849 the sum thus 
accumulated amounted to $818. In this year the 
apathy caused by the two failures of 1845 an( i 1846 
passed away, and new efforts were made to increase 
the endowment. The responsibility of urging sub- 
scriptions was laid upon a single person. Mr. Hemy 
A. Tayloe was appointed to solicit contributions 
throughout the diocese. A better selection could not 
have been made. Mr. Tayloe had a wide acquaint- 
ance through the State, and at the end of a single 
year was able to report that he had raised, in cash and 
in subscriptions in the shape of responsible notes, the 
sum of $10,829. Of this amount the two Mobile 
Churches gave $2,338, Montgomery $1 ,005, Huntsville 
$1,060, and St. David's (Dallas County) $1,185. Mr - 
Tayloe 's entire expense account in collecting these 
subscriptions was only $69.70. 

The amounts subscribed and paid in were given by 
one hundred and fifty- eight persons, living in twenty- 
six different parishes. The subscriptions were cred- 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 87 

ited by the Convention to the parish and not to the 
individual. 

In connection with these subscriptions the aban- 
doned plan of 1845 was applied to the adjustment of 
parochial assessments. It was ordered that the Trus- 
tees of the Bishop's Fund should collect interest on 
the cash and notes, and pay it into the treasury of 
the diocese; that such collections should be counted 
as so much paid on the diocesan assessment by the 
parish in which the donor lived; that when the pay- 
ment of interest in any one year was greater than the 
parish's assessment for that year, the surplus of inter- 
est should be added to the principal of the endow- 
ment fund; and that when the annual interest should 
become equal to the annual assessment the parish 
should be released from further assessment. 

It w r as a complicated scheme, and in its execution 
it imposed much labor on the Trustees of the Bish- 
op's Fund; for not only were they required to keep 
the cash subscriptions of three thousand dollars at 
interest and in reliable hands, but it was also their 
duty to keep track of the individual notes, amounting 
to $7,837, and collect interest at various times through 
the entire year. The Treasurer of the diocese was, 
as his part of the labor, required to keep account of 
the canonical removal, and the date of removal, of a 
subscriber from one parish to another, in order to 
make proper debits and credits on diocesan assess- 
ments. Questions of equity in connection with these 
subscriptions not infrequently demanded the best 



HISTORY OF THE 



judgment not only of the Finance Committee but of 
the Convention itself. 

It was an awkward scheme, yet the only scheme 
practicable; for the great bulk of these notes, while 
nominally payable in five years, were not to be paid, 
it was orally agreed, so long as interest on them was 
kept up. It was the only practicable scheme, yet a 
scheme unsafe and unreliable; for another period of 
general financial stringency such as the country had 
but recently weathered would render all personal 
security worthless and leave the subscriptions worth 
only the paper on which they were written. 

But these difficulties were inevitable. The proba- 
bility of loss was reduced to the minimum by the fact 
that many of the largest notes were signed by the most 
responsible men of the state, whose failure to pay 
would synchronize with stoppage of payment on all 
securities save those of National issue — men like the 
Bllerbees and Pegueses, in Dallas county; the Alisons 
and Lees, of Carlowville; Isaac Croom, and the Pick- 
enses and Stickneys, of Greensboro; R. W. Nicolson 
and the Minges, of Uniontown and Faunsdale; W. F. 
Pierce and Alexander Jarvis, of Eutaw; William P. 
Gould, of Burton's Hill; John Marrast, of Tuskaloosa; 
F. S. Lyon, of Demopolis; J. M. Robertson, G. P. 
Beirne, and the Clays, of Huntsville; Emanuel Jones, 
William M. Garrow, T. Lesesne, and the Battles, of 
Mobile; and Charles T. Pollard, William Knox, and 
the Taylors, of Montgomery. These names indicate 
an array of personal integrity and financial responsi- 
bility that fully justified the Trustees in their remark 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 89 

of 1852: "These notes are believed to be as good as 
the same number and date can be, taken under like 
circumstances. If it were proper to collect them, so 
long as the interest is regularly paid, we doubt very 
much whether the amount could be invested on any 
security to make it more safe and reliable than it is at 
present. ' ' 

Feeling with the Trustees that the security of these 
notes could not be increased, even if it were attempted, 
in violation of explicit understanding to the contrary, 
to collect them, the Convention endorsed Mr. Tayloe's 
action, and instructed the Trustees, in accordance with 
the agreement between him and the subscribers, "to 
postpone the collection of the principal due upon the 
notes so long as they were considered good and the 
interest was annually paid. ' ' But in the ensuing year 
drawers of notes voluntarily took them up to the 
amount ot fourteen hundred dollars. This money, 
together with the cash subscriptions previously in 
hand, was lent at eight per cent, to various individuals 
in sums ranging from twenty-five dollars to eight 
hundred. 

The income from the endowment fund was already 
almost as great as it is today from a principal more 
than three times as great. In this as in all other cases 
safety of investment has been purchased with a portion 
of the income. 

In 1854 the Trustees of the Bishop's Fund drew 

attention to the distinction between the l ' Special 

Fund," whose entire interest was to be paid each year 

towards the Bishop's salary, and the "Permanent 
— 7 



90 HISTORY OF THK 



Fund," which was made up of Christmas offerings, 
and whose interest was to go entirely to the augmen- 
tation of the principal. At this time the permanent 
fund amounted to $2,233.34, an ^ the special fund to 

$11, 979-75- 

Renewed effort was now made to increase the en- 
dowment. A layman had done noble work before, 
and now a clergyman was selected — the Rev. Henry 
C. Lay, of Huntsville. For several months after his 
appointment Mr. Lay was unable to enter upon the 
work. But so soon as he began his canvass, in 1855, 
it became manifest that the Convention had once again 
made wise choice of an agent. Mr. Lay visited 
twenty-one congregations, and secured a total amount, 
above his expenses, of $11,882. Of this amount 
$4,052 was in cash and $7,830 in notes. Nearly one- 
fourth of the whole, or $2,245, was given by parish- 
ioners of Christ Church, Mobile. Greensboro stood 
next, with a subscription of $1,615, V a ^ i n g°ld> and 
Montgomery third, with $1,235. Many of those who 
had given to the same object ten years before, on Mr. 
Tayloe's canvass, were even more liberal this time 
than before. The new list was somewhat more of a 
popular subscription than the former. Fewer parishes 
were represented, but the subscribers numbered one 
hundred and sixty-nine. 

The work of the Trustees of the Bishop's Fund was 
now onerous. About two hundred separate notes had 
to be watched, both for collection of interest and for 
proper credit of interest on parochial assessments. 
On the latter point misunderstanding and complaint 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 9 1 

became more frequent than in previous years. As a 
whole, the method was as cumbersome as the Ptole- 
maic system of astronomy. In 1856 the Convention 
forgot the original understanding with subscribers, and 
attempted to secure simplicity of detail by directing 
the Trustees to consolidate all notes given by the 
same person at different times, and as fast as they fell 
due to collect them and reinvest the proceeds in such 
securities as seemed both safe and permanent. But if 
the Convention forgot the agreement that the notes 
should not be collected so long as interest was paid, 
the drawers of the notes had a better memory, and 
the collections were inconsiderable. 

In 1858 the Special Fund* amounted to a little less 
than $23,000, of which $1,700 in cash was not 
invested; $4,346 was invested in eight per cent, 
bonds of the Mobile and Ohio and Alabama and Mis- 
sissippi (now Alabama Central division of the South- 
ern) railroads. The next year sixteen hundred dollars 
more of Alabama and Mississippi Railroad bonds were 
bought, and the following year four thousand dollars 
was invested in bonds of the Alabama and Florida 
Railroad. 

In this year, i860, it was evident that trying times 
were ahead, and the Convention deemed it wise to 
provide for diocesan interests by refusing to grant 
further time on the notes, now many years overdue 
legally, but never due morally. On recommendation 
of the Finance Committee it began to take in sail by 

*See page 89. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 



resolving "That the Trustees of the Bishop's Fund 
be positively instructed to collect all the notes of con- 
tributors to the Fund now due." It was one thing 
for the Convention to pass the resolution; it was 
another thing to carry the resolution into effect. Ten 
years later, when the tidal wave of war had rolled 
back and the few that were not dead or bankrupt had 
made good their subscriptions, it was found that notes 
and securities whose face value was $24,724 were 
worth less than $15,000; of which $5,000 was a note 
given by the vestry of St. John's parish, Montgomery, 
secured by a mortgage on Hamner Hall, and destined 
to be the source of years of contention and of ulti- 
mate blessing to the diocese. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE DIOCESAN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 

IT has ever been a loss to the diocese, a loss that 
increases with the growth of successive genera- 
tions, that Church families, living far from organized 
congregations, waiting long years for the promised 
coming of a missionary, surrounded by the sectarian 
bodies whose members, pioneer settlers of the country, 
had come in sufficient numbers to receive regular min- 
istrations from the beginning, have at last grown hope- 
less of the Church's ever-deferred mothering, and, 
impelled by zealous desire to worship God in the 
company of their fellow-men, or seduced by the spe- 
cious accusation of Pharisaic righteousness, have at 
last given the right hand of fellowship to the system 
of religious opinion prevailing in their immediate 
vicinity. 

In the early days of the diocese this evil was most 
marked, for these isolated families formed a larger 
proportion of the entire number of communicants than 
they now form. As late as i860 one-fifteenth of the 
Churchmen of Alabama were thus isolated. It is a 
moderate estimate that in 1850 the proportion was one- 
eighth. The necessity for some provision for these 
families was felt quite as keenly then as now. Ala- 
bama Churchmen have alwa} T s rallied loyally to the 
call of their leaders, whether to go forward or to hold 
fast what they already have. From the beginning 

93 



94 HISTORY OF THE 



the same moving Spirit that impelled the Church in 
Alabama to seek a head was urging the Churchmen 
in Alabama to keep whole the Body under the head. 

Parishes and clergymen here and there had been 
spasmodically doing missionary work, but not until 
1843 was organized work attempted. In that year the 
Rev. Messrs. S. S. Lewis of Mobile, F. R. Hanson 
of Greene county, and J. J. Scott of Livingston, and 
Messrs. A. B. Winn of Demopolis, and George Cleve- 
land of Mobile, were appointed a committee "to en- 
quire into the expediency of originating a Diocesan 
Missionary Society, and, if deemed expedient, to re- 
port to the next Convention suitable measures to carry 
the same into effect. ' ' 

The proposed Society was organized in 1844, on the 
day before Bishop Cobbs' election. With truly Cath- 
olic spirit the very first Article of its Constitution de- 
clared that "every baptized member of this Church 
shall be regarded as a member of this Society. ' ' With 
wisdom and statesmanship that the Church needs to 
emulate today the method of operations was thus out- 
lined: "Your committee are prepared to recommend 
the appointment, first, of one general Missionary, who 
shall visit every portion of the diocese, record the 
names of Episcopal families wherever he might find 
them not in communion with existing parishes, bap- 
tize their children, etc. , and encourage them with the 
hope that, by proper exertions on their part, they 
might soon enjoy the services of the Church at regu- 
lar periods; and do all other things in accordance with 
his missionary character. Thus new congregations 



CHURCH IN ALA BAMA. 95 

will be gradually built up throughout the diocese, and 
whenever one or two parishes felt able, with or with- 
out 'assistance, [to join] in the support of a clergy- 
man, the general Missionary should then give up those 
parishes, and extend his services to other new places. 
* * * We want a man full of Apostolic zeal, and 
fired with the spirit of that love and devotion to the 
souls of men which animated the hearts and strength- 
ened the physical energies of the first Evangelists and 
Missionaries, and, with God's blessing, success will 
be certain to attend us; and in a short time, instead of 
one, some five or six missionaries may be in the ser- 
vice of the Society. ' ' 

How to raise the necessary income — whether by 
stated offerings or by individual subscriptions — the 
Committee left for the Convention to determine. The 
question of method, it felt, was of minor importance. 
The proper spirit was not, "Let us adopt a method, 
and try to do this work," but, "Here is a divinely 
imposed duty. We will do it. How can we do it 
best?" 

When, in due time, this question of method was 
reached, the Society answered it by calling on par- 
ishes instead of individuals, and, without expression 
of preference, left each parish to determine its own 
method. This was eminently the wisest course. Only 
experience could determine the scheme most practi- 
cable in Alabama; and it required experience extend- 
ing through nearly half .a century to lead the diocese 
at large to adopt the present successful system. 

The original necessity for an Evangelist vanished 



96 HISTORY OF THE 



with the coming of Bishop Cobbs. The Bishop was 
himself the Evangelist, and his example roused the 
dormant missionary zeal of the clergy to some measure 
of care for hitherto neglected Churchmen. Conse- 
quently the Missionary Society's activity was restricted 
to supplementing the meager incomes of those who 
ministered to already established congregations; the 
distribution of stipends and the allotment of work it 
reposed entirety in the Bishop's hands. Its income 
the first year was quite modest, being only $245, and 
this sum was divided between two missionaries. This, 
however, does not represent Alabama's missionary 
spirit at the time; for in the same year the diocese 
gave $600 to the Domestic and Foreign Missionary 
Society; and the total of $845 was a creditable amount 
for a diocese of only 663 communicants to give to mis- 
sionary work in a single year. 

The following year the Bishop's appeal for increased 
liberality toward missionary work in the diocese was 
answered by an increase of the Society's income to 
four hundred dollars; and this was the average income 
until i860. The missionaries, therefore, numbered 
only two or three until 1856, when the number was 
increased to four. The number varied from four to six 
for the next five years. 

Manifestly the Bishop's apportionment to individual 
missionaries was not overlarge. In 1853 the Rev. J. 
M. Mitchell, then assisting Bishop Cobbs, in St. John's 
Church, Montgomery, and in connection with this work 
doing good service in the mission field of the county, 
received from the Society fifty dollars; the same amount 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 97 

was given the Rev. T. A. Morris, working in Jack- 
son county; and the largest beneficiary, the Rev. R. 
D. Nevius, then a deacon officiating in St. David's 
Church, Dallas county, received only seventy dollars. 
In 1857 the stipends ranged between seventy-five and 
one hundred dollars. In 1859-60 improvement was 
visible, and the Society's allowances were increased 
to a minimum of one hundred dollars and a maximum 
of one hundred and fifty. 

This increase was due to a sudden increase of the 
Society's income from five hundred dollars, towards 
which it had been slowly growing for several years, 
to thirteen hundred dollars. That this remarkable 
increase did not arouse a feeling of thankfulness in 
the Bishop, but only called forth the statement that 
1 ' although this is a larger amount than has been con- 
tributed in any former year, yet it is obvious that the 
Bishop can do but little toward strengthening weak 
parishes and occupying new stations until a much 
greater sum is put at his disposal," must be attributed 
solely to his physical ill health, which was now be- 
coming pronounced. The great increase was declara- 
tive of new zeal in the Church, and was the first 
ripple of an increasing flow which told that the brook 
had become a river. Although the Bishop did not 
live to see it, the Society's income next year had 
risen to $1,500; and all through the trying years of 
civil war it remained, after the first year, above one 
thousand dollars. 

Seven different missionaries were employed during 
the last ten years. They were the Rev. Messrs. J. F. 



98 CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 

Smith, J. S. Jarratt, F. B. Lee, Edward Denniston, 
W. M. Bartley, J. A. Wheelock, and J. C. Waddill. 
The congregations served by them were eighteen in 
number: Autaugaville and Prattville; Greenville, 
Letohatchie, and Hayneville; Carlowville; Opelika, 
Auburn, Yongesboro, and Salem; Tuskegee and Tal- 
lassee; Butaw and Gainesville; and Pushmataha, 
Butler, Mount Stirling, and Bladon Springs. Some 
of these congregations are to-day extinct, a few have 
a service when the Bishop makes his annual visita- 
tion, and of those that are provided with regular min- 
isters not one is self-supporting. Movements of 
population have apparently made futile the missionary 
work of a generation of work. 

But only superficial observers will call that work a 
failure. The work of Christ, the work of Christ's 
Church, is rather to establish souls than to establish 
congregations. If the souls are established the con- 
gregations may disappear but are not lost. The mis- 
sionaries in these villages and towns were the real 
founders of the churches in Anniston and Birming- 
ham, and were not insignificant factors in the growth 
of the large congregations in Mobile, Montgomery, 
and Selma. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE RELIEF OF THE CLERGY. 

THE relief of disabled clergy and of the families of 
deceased clergy was one of the first undertakings 
that followed the securing of a Bishop. It was 
deemed the natural condition of the parish priest that 
he should be married. It was perceived that clerical 
stipends were not large enough to dispel gloomy fore- 
bodings, and that these, increasing with the on-rolling 
years, beclouded the life and weighed down the heart 
of the most faithful minister. It was felt that the au- 
thority of the Church calling a man to leave all was 
attended with the responsibility of caring for her ser- 
vants and their families when the call was obeyed. 

It cannot be said that these thoughts led to passion- 
ate or even deep-rooted conviction in the minds of 
many. Most of the Churchmen that felt anything 
about the matter thought that, as an abstract proposi- 
tion, it was the right thing for the Church to pension 
the incapacitated and their dependent families. A 
few were willing, if occasionally urged, to reduce the 
principle to action by contributing towards a pension 
fund. A very few were thoroughly in earnest in the 
formulation of a scheme by which Alabama should do 
her duty to her clergy. 

In Carlowville, on May 9, 1846, during a recess 
of the Convention, these last named organized the 
"Society for the Relief of Disabled Clergy and the 



99 



C 

if 



IOO HISTORY OF THK 



Widows and Orphans of Deceased Clergy." Mr. L. 
E. Dawson, of Carlowville, was elected President; 
Judge E. W. Peck, of Tuskaloosa, Vice-President; 
and Mr. Henry A. Tayloe, of Gallion, Secretary and 
Treasurer. Its Standing Committee consisted of the 
Rev. Messrs. F. B. Lee and N. P. Knapp, and Messrs. 
H. L,. Alison, John Ellerbee and John Simpson. All 
clergymen were members; laymen became members 
without benefit upon payment of the annual dues of 
five dollars. A simple but inadequate Constitution 
was set forth at the primary meeting. It was of no 
practical importance, for the Society was not incor- 
porated, and for the next seven years had no autono- 
mous existence, being merged, at its own request, 
into the Convention, which appointed its officers, 
passed upon all applications, and generally discharged 
the Society's functions.* 

In 1853 the Convention restored the Society to the 
autonomy of its original organization; whereupon the 
Society instantly adopted a new Constitution, and was 
incorporated by special act of Legislature in February, 
1854, thus being put beyond the possibility of further 
control by the Convention. 

The new Constitution of 1853 was an elaborate affair, 
modeled after that of a like society in the diocese of 
Maryland. It provided that a layman could become 
an annual member, always without benefit, on pay- 
ment of five dollars, but that the clergy must pay ten, 
twenty, thirty, or forty dollars, yearly, according to 
the amount of benefit that they desired. When a cler- 



See Journal of 1848, page 24. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. IOI 

gyman married more than once he was fined one extra 
yearly assessment in the year of every such marriage. 
These assessments were to be the basis of computation 
for annuities to widows and orphans. Five annual 
payments entitled them to an annuity three times the 
amount of the yearly payment, from five to ten annual 
payments entitled them to an annuity four times the 
amount of the yearly payment, and so on. The highest 
annuity was to be that of a member who had made 
twenty-five annual payments and whose income would 
thus be eight times his yearly payment of ten, twenty, 
thirty, or forty dollars — that is, eighty, one hundred 
and sixty, two hundred and forty, or three hundred 
and twenty dollars. To the Society's assets — $i ,470 — 
all subsequent donations were to be added, and a special 
fund created and maintained, apart from the mutual 
insurance scheme, for the benefit of needy diocesan 
clergy, whether members or not. Such aid was to be 
given as the Society might deem proper, but no por- 
tion of the Society's special fund was to be expended 
for the relief of any person whomsoever until it should 
reach the sum of five thousand dollars, and under no 
circumstances should the total appropriations of any 
year exceed the income for the same year.* 

Under this last provision the Society was unable to 
render aid to any one until 1858, when its capital 
crossed the line and amounted to $5,238. Meanwhile 
it was compelled to deny several applications, nota- 
bly the application in behalf of the children of Dr. 
S. S. Lewis. To some these refusals appeared heart- 
* Journal of 1853, pages 45-48. 



102 HISTORY OF THK 



less, but they were rendered necessary by the fact that 
the Society had started without any funds, and there- 
fore must build up an endowment which should en- 
sure the permanency of the work. After an exist- 
ence of three years the Society had, in 1849, a capital 
of $37.16, and its gross income for the entire period 
had been only $165. But, following in a small way 
the plan that its Treasurer, Mr. Tayloe, had adopted 
to build up the Episcopal endowment two years before, 
it succeeded in getting several notes signed; and these 
increased the capital to $511. Three years later its 
assets were less than one thousand dollars. There- 
after for several years the growth of the principal 
though slow was constantly accelerated, the increase 
being $400 in 1855, $700 in 1856, and $900 in 1857. 
In the last named year Mr. Tayloe declined longer to 
act as Treasurer, an office which, in conjunction with 
that of Secretary, he had held from the Society's or- 
ganization. The Society divided the two offices, and, 
leaving Mr. Tayloe Secretary, elected Mr. George P. 
Beirne, of Huntsville, Treasurer. 

At this time North Alabama was developing rap- 
idly, and its chief railroad, the Memphis and Charles- 
ton, in which was incorporated the old Tuscumbia and 
Decatur, offered a good field for investment to those 
on the ground. Mr. Beirne immediately lent the 
whole of the Society's available assets — $5,038 — to 
the Memphis and Charleston Railroad Company, at 
eight per cent. For three years he operated in in- 
vestments in this road, and then, in i860, was able to 
announce that the Society's assets had grown to $14,- 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 103 

123, of which $6,262 were the profits of the past year. 
This growth was so remarkable that it merits closer 
examination: 

In 1857 Mr. Beirne purchased $1,000 worth of stock 
in the road for $750; on this stock a sixty per cent, 
dividend was declared on December 1 — a clear profit 
of $850 on an investment of $750 in less than one 
year. Mr. Beirne had previously added to his origi- 
nal loan to the road, which now owed him $6,300; this 
loan was next exchanged for bonds of the value of 
$7,000, and these bonds were shortly exchanged for 
stock of the same face value. All these transactions 
were completed before December 1, 1859, and the 
stock thus secured received the same sixty per cent, 
dividend that the former block received — a clear profit 
of $4,900 on an investment of $6,300 in less than one 
year. The remaining increase of $512 was an addi- 
tional four per cent, dividend on the Society's five 
hundred and twelve shares of Memphis and Charles- 
ton stock. 

In another year the assets were $16,901.57. Suc- 
cess always brings greater success. So soon as a fund 
begins to grow people are more liberal to it than 
when it is a puny infant. So soon as fortunate in- 
vestments sent the Society's income bounding up- 
ward enthusiasm became contagious. Annual con- 
tributors increased in one year from twenty-nine to 
fifty-two, and the year after to sixty-seven. St. Paul's, 
Carlowville, took the initiative when, in 1857, the 
parish gave the Society five hundred dollars. At the 
instance of the Rev. Henry C. I^ay , the Society at once 



104 CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 

resolved that the heirs of the rector of that parish, 
the Rev. F. B. Lee, should at his death " be entitled 
to receive the largest annuity allowed to a member of 
the forty-dollar class" — i. e., $320. In i860 Mr. N. 
H. R. Dawson, who had in the preceding year been 
elected President, on Bishop Cobbs' declination to 
serve longer, made the Society another payment of 
five hundred dollars to its insurance department, 
specifying as beneficiaries of this sum for nine years 
each in the ten-dollar class the Rev. Messrs. F. B. 
Lee, J. M. Mitchell, G. F. Cushman, J. H. Ticknor, 
and William A. Stickney. 

So at the beginning of the Civil War the Society 
was in a condition to relieve the clergy of much 
anxiety and their families of more distress. 



CHAPTER XII. 

CHURCH SCHOOLS. 

FOR nothing else did Bishop Cobbs so earnestly 
plead and work throughout his episcopate as for 
a diocesan institution wherein the future mothers of 
the diocese might, together with their secular educa- 
tion, drink in the principles of Church teaching and 
Christian living. In nothing else were his attempts 
so long frustrated and his hopes so often dashed. Not 
till three years before his death was the final and suc- 
cessful movement set on foot. Not till three months 
before his death did he see of the travail of his soul. 
The first attempt was made in 1845, an d Tuska- 
loosa, the capital of the state and the residence of the 
Bishop, was the field chosen. In October of this year 
the Rev. Aristides S. Smith, an old friend of the 
Bishop's in the days of his Virginia ministry, was in- 
duced by the Bishop to establish a Girls' School in 
Tuskaloosa, and in addition to become assistant to the 
Bishop, who had become rector of the parish in the 
summer of that year. At the Bishop's earnest sug- 
gestion the Convention of 1846 appointed a Board of 
Trustees of a "Female Institute," to be under the 
control of the Church in Alabama. While the Con- 
vention did not in so many words undertake to erect 
Mr. Smith's school, a private venture, into a diocesan 
institution, yet the personnel of the Board of Trus- 
tees — all the appointees, Judge K. W. Peck, H. A. 
— 8 105 



106 HISTORY OF THE 



Snow, C. M. Foster, E. F. Comegys, Charles Snow, 
A. Lynch, and Dr. S. G. Leach, being residents of 
Tuskaloosa — shows conclusively that such was its in- 
tention. But Mr. Smith's sojourn in Alabama was 
too short to get a diocesan institution into working 
order. After two years he moved on to Columbus, 
Miss. , whence after four years he returned to Vir- 
ginia. After his departure no attempt was made to 
keep the school open. 

A diocesan school for boys, which should be a nurs- 
ery for the Ministry of the next generation, was Bish- 
op Cobbs' next attempt. An opportunity presented 
itself in 1847. Some of the Bishop's friends in the 
neighborhood of Greene Springs made him the very 
liberal proposition to purchase and present to him the 
Greene Springs property (subsequently famous as 
Prof. Tutrwiler's Greene Springs Academy), the only 
condition being that the Bishop should establish him- 
self there and give the school his personal supervision 
in the intervals of his Episcopal visitations. The 
proposition was the more liberal in that they who 
made it were not Churchmen. The Bishop, however. 
felt that it would be imprudent for him to remove 
from the capital and obligate himself to personal con- 
duct of the school, and regretfully declined the prop- 
osition. 

Less than two years later, on January 2, 1849, the 
project became an attractive but evanescent reality in 
the foundation at Tuskaloosa of a "Classical Insti- 
tute and Mission School'' for boys and young men. 
The plan on which the school was to be conducted 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 107 

had been carefully digested, and, could it have been 
carried out, would have worked an almost miraculous 
change in the missionary operations and parochial 
life of the diocese. 

It seems to have been suggested by the recent suc- 
cess of James Lloyd Breck's venture at Nashotah, and, 
with allowance for schools of Churchmanship, was 
projected on parallel lines. A classical and a theo- 
logical department were organized. Theological stu- 
dents could pay their expenses by teaching in the 
classical department a few hours each day. Pupils 
were regarded not merely as seekers after secular 
knowledge, but as catechumens preparing for Con- 
firmation and strong, healthy Christian living. The 
Prayer Book was a daily text-book. Daily Morning 
and Evening Prayer were said, and the entire school 
attended divine services whenever the parish church 
was opened. The faculty and theological students 
acted as missionaries in the ecclesiastically destitute 
regions that extended nearly forty miles in every 
direction. The Bishop was assisted in this under- 
taking by the principal and wheel-horse, the Rev. 
Charles F. Peake, and by the ushers, Mr. George F. 
Cushman, a candidate for Orders, and Mr. George W, 
Stickney, who entered the Ministry a few years later. 
Two theological students and twenty-two classical 
pupils made up the first year's enrollment. Tuition 
fees amounting to about four hundred dollars, and a 
subscription of one hundred and fifty dollars from 
a few Northern friends of the project, made up the 
income, which was applied to fitting up the school 



I08 HISTORY OF THE 



building — the famous old " Mansion House," now the 
parish rectory. The boarding department was to be 
limited to twenty-five boys. Charges for tuition and 
board were to be kept at a level with necessary ex- 
penses and to be reduced whenever a reduction should 
be found practicable. It was held that this was a mis- 
sionary school, conducted by missionaries, intended to 
do a missionary work, and that under no circumstances 
should the ideal be prostituted to lower ends. A few 
laymen of Tuskaloosa gave the buildings free of rent 
the first year, and, the Capitol having been changed 
to Montgomery, the old State House was offered rent- 
free for the ensuing year. The prospect was most 
encouraging, when, in July of the same year, after 
only six months' operation, the school was closed by 
the death of the burden-bearer, Mr. Peake. Another 
Peake has never arisen in Alabama. 

In the summer of 1850 the project of a diocesan 
Girls' School in Tuskaloosa was revived. The Rev. 
William Johnson, a man of fierce, unyielding temper, 
was chosen as principal, and the school was opened 
in September. The patronage of the school not yield- 
ing Mr. Johnson an adequate support, Bishop Cobbs 
resigned the rectorship of the parish, to which, on his 
recommendation, Mr. Johnson was elected. At first 
the Bishop gave the school strong endorsement, and 
for a time it grew in numbers and reputation. But 
soon dissensions arose between principal and pupils, 
and then between rector and vestry. The Bishop 
ceased to refer to the school in any public manner. 
In June, 1854, the vestry requested Mr. Johnson to 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. IO9 

resign the rectorship of the parish. He refused. The 
vestry promptly dismissed him, and, after one disor- 
derly public service at which Mr. Johnson aired his 
personal grievances from the chancel floor and was 
immediately rebuked by several prominent parishion- 
ers, nailed up the church doors against him. The 
vestry's action in ousting the rector was uncanonical, 
but the rector's precedent action had been unwise, 
and the action of the former was, in December, ratified 
by the Bishop on the ground that reconciliation had 
proven impossible. A portion of the congregation 
followed Mr. Johnson for a few months to the old 
State Capitol, three blocks from the church, and sub- 
sequently to a chapel which he erected five miles east 
of Tuskaloosa, where he continued public services 
about six months longer. But without his salary as 
rector, and with school patronage much injured by 
the parochial contention, Mr. Johnson was unable to 
continue operations, and the end of his rectorship was 
virtually the extinction of the school. 

The Bishop was still unwilling to confess that Ala- 
bama could not support a Church school for Church 
girls. After waiting two years he again reverted to 
this fond desire, and in his Convention address of 
1857 urged the Convention to give it prompt and ef- 
ficient attention. This request was referred to a com- 
mittee consisting of the Rev. Messrs. J. M. Banister 
and F. R. Hanson, of the clergy, and Messrs. Charles 
T. Pollard, A. W. Ellerbee, and A. R. Bell, of the 
laity. The committee reported favorably upon the 



IIO HISTORY OF THE 



Bishop's communication, and suggested that a com- 
mittee be appointed with power to act as they deemed 
most expedient to further the establishment of a 
diocesan seminary. This committee, on whom de- 
volved all the preliminary labors, consisted of the 
Bishop, as Chairman; the Rev. J. M. Mitchell, and 
Messrs. Samuel G. Jones and Thomas B. Taylor — all 
of Montgomery. 

The committee went vigorously to work, and re- 
turned to the next Convention with a report which 
the Finance Committee endorsed and the Convention 
adopted by unanimous vote. Feeling that the pre- 
ceding failures to establish permanently a girls' school 
had been due largely to the smallness of the popula- 
tion from which day-pupils could be drawn, the Com- 
mittee had decided that the school must be located in 
a larger place than Tuskaloosa, and they had settled 
upon Montgomery. There, just beyond the corporate 
limits, west of the town, they had purchased a grove 
of nearly ten acres, at a cost of six thousand dollars. 
Nearly the whole of this amount they had alreadj r 
raised in Montgomery by popular subscription, and 
they expected to raise there fully ten thousand dollars. 
They called on the remainder of the diocese for twenty 
thousand dollars more, with which to erect suitable 
buildings. They expected to lay the foundations and 
press forward the work so soon as the funds in hand 
should warrant a beginning. They recommended 
that, in order to secure a competent principal at the 
outset, the school be leased free of charge to the most 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. Ill 

worthy applicant, the Board of Trustees to determine 
availability. 

The following year the committee were able to 
report that Montgomery had raised not ten, but fifteen 
thousand dollars, and they promised that this should 
be increased to twenty thousand dollars if the remain- 
der of the diocese would raise the same amount. 
Already the Rev. J. Avery Shepherd had opened a 
girls' school in Montgomery, and was holding himself 
in readiness to accept the principalship of the ' ' Dio- 
cesan Female Seminary." 

All preliminary work having been done, the Con- 
vention discharged the committee and elected as 
Trustees of the school Dr. T. B. Taylor, Mr. Charles 
T. Pollard, Mr. Samuel G. Jones, and the Rev. J. M. 
Mitchell, their terms of office being respectively one, 
two, three, and four years, and each trustee's suc- 
cessor to be elected for a term of four years. By in- 
struction of the Convention these Trustees proceeded 
to make themselves a body corporate. 

By the articles of subscription the Trustees were 
directed to make the first lease of the school for two 
years, and free of rent. Under this agreement the 
school was opened by the Rev. Mr. Shepherd, in Oc- 
tober, i860. The unsettled condition of the country 
had caused delay in the erection of the contemplated 
buildings, but a commodious dwelling-house was 
rented for the boarding department and an adjoining 
house for school purposes. The first day's enroll- 
ment was good, and the number of pupils increased 



112 CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 

so rapidly that by the middle of the scholastic year 
both the day-school and the boarding department had 
reached their utmost limit. The necessarily heavy 
expenses of the first year were fully covered by the 
income. The school was a success. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

PERSONNEL OF THE CLERGY. 

THERE were giants in the earth in those days. 
It were the part of unwisdom to say that those 
old times were better than these; but it were also the 
error of dim vision to ascribe the ante-bellum develop- 
ment of the Church in Alabama to Bishop Cobbs 
alone. The greatest of generals can do nothing if he 
head a mob of weaklings and cowards. The most 
devoted of Bishops is powerless without the support 
of loyal and able clergy to do the parochial work 
which, in the sum total, constitutes the work of the 
diocese. 

A review of the early history of the diocese dis- 
closes a galaxy of clerical strength out of all propor- 
tion to the diocesan firmament, and the strongest tes- 
timony to the mental vigor and spiritual force and 
theological acuteness of the Bishop is that he so 
promptly asserted and so increasingly manifested his 
ability to lead such men and was so lovingly followed 
by them. Young men the great majority of them 
were, and, the few patriarchs excepted, their average 
age was less than thirty-five years. But Lewis, 
Knapp, Hanson, Lay, Lee, Pierce, Massey, Cushman, 
Ingraham, Mitchell, and Stickney, were a company 
of clergy that any prelate might well feel honored to 
lead. If, as we call the roll, the names of some are 
strange to our ears, it is only because no historian has 

"3 



114 HISTORY OF TPIK 



arisen to declare what they dared and did. Others 
were springing into prominence — Banister, Nevius, 
S. U. and J. F. Smith, Cobbs, and Everhart — but 
their best work belongs to a later period, and may not 
now be described. 

Two of the clergy were elevated to the Episcopal 
bench — Henry C. Lay and Henry N. Pierce. Of 
these two it is proper to speak first. 

Mr. Lay, Virginia-born, had been a deacon only six 
months when, in 1847, ne came to Alabama, and at 
the age of twenty-three was placed by the Bishop in 
charge of the Church of the Nativity, Huntsville. His 
attainments are attested by the sources of his doctor- 
ates, both Hobart College and William and Mary 
conferring D.D. on him, in 1857 and 1873 respect- 
ively, and Cambridge University LL-D. in 1867. His 
whole priestly life until October 23, 1859, when he 
was consecrated Missionary Bishop of Arkansas and 
Indian Territory, was spent in Huntsville. He found 
that parish with nineteen communicants, and left it 
twelve years later with ninety-one. He found a four- 
thousand-dollar church building, and left a beauti- 
ful structure costing thirty-five thousand dollars. 
Throughout his rectorship he regularly catechized the 
children in public, and preached to them twice in the 
month. Every Sunday night he preached to a large 
congregation of slaves. He made Huntsville a cen- 
ter of missionary activity from which, with the assist- 
ance of two resident clergymen, a priest and a deacon, 
he provided for services in the counties of Madison, 
Limestone, Jackson, and Morgan. He was, as we 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 115 

have seen*, appointed second canvasser for the in- 
crease of the Episcopal endowment, and in a single 
year raised about twelve thousand dollars. In dio- 
cesan Conventions he was a prominent figure, being 
generally chairman of the Committee on the State of 
the Church, a committee that had not then been 
robbed of its importance by the creation of a Com- 
mittee on Parochial Reports. In respect of concise- 
ness, force, and freedom from vague generalities, his 
reports are worthy of imitation. The following pas- 
sage, taken from his report of 1857, i n which he is 
pleading for diocesan esprit du corps, is a fair example 
of his style: " The blessed sunshine itself illumines 
all the world, and yet spends itself chiefly on those ob- 
jects nearest and most exposed thereto. So must we 
concentrate our energies and our affections on that 
which is peculiarly our own work. Could each min- 
ister love his parish with that exclusive affection 
which a good man entertains for his wife — could we 
have in each diocese something corresponding to what 
is so well known in the world as ' State Pride ' — could 
our people, not despising the day of small things, 
take a lively interest in all things diocesan, merely 
because they are diocesan — we should be a Macedo- 
nian phalanx, hard to be broken and formidable in its 
aggressions." 

The other presbyter of this period who was elevated 
to the Episcopate was the present Bishop of Arkansas, 
the Rt. Rev. Henry N. Pierce, who, though a Rhode 
Islander, exercised nearly his whole ministry in the 

* Page 90. 



Il6 HISTORY OF THK 



South. He came to Alabama, and to St. John's 
Church, Mobile, in 1857, an d remained rector of that 
parish eleven years. Only three of these years are 
within our present purview, but in that short period 
St. John's made great strides. Not only the commu- 
nicants increased from ninety to one hundred and 
thirty-four, and the yearly baptisms from twenty- eight 
to seventy-seven, but the debt on the rectory was paid, 
the average income rose to more than five thousand 
dollars, the church building was enlarged to a total 
seating capacity of eight hundred, and five thousand 
dollars was raised for the founding of the Church 
Home for Orphans in Mobile. Mr. Pierce did not 
become a prominent figure in diocesan consultations — 
indeed, men whose recreation is to work in Calculus 
seldom do — but he expended all of his great energy 
upon the absorbing work of his developing parish. 
The University of Alabama conferred D. D. on him 
in 1862. 

Though mentioned first these future Bishops were 
neither first in point of time nor pre-eminent in point 
of ability among the old-time worthies.* Samuel 
Smith Lewis was the first in time, and remained until 
his death senior presbyter and ' ' Father of the Dio- 
cese. " Born in Vermont in 1805, and educated at 
Washington (now Trinity) College, Hartford, Conn., 
he entered upon his first charge, Christ Church, Tus- 

* It is very comforting to the clergy that have not become 
Bishops to think that the Episcopate does not monopolize 
clerical ability. Elections by diocesan conventions mean 
sometimes this and sometimes that. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 117 

kaloosa, in 1832. His work here, he confessed, was 
eminently unsatisfactory, seventeen of the twenty- 
eight communicants removing to other places within 
a few months. He went so far as to suggest to the 
vestry the advisability of abandoning the attempt to 
establish a congregation, but the vestry refused to 
entertain such a proposition and insisted that the 
parish would soon come upon brighter days. Mr. 
Lewis' discouragement would probably not have been 
so great but for deep-seated lung-trouble which had 
already declared itself. For nearly three years he 
fought it, and then, in the summer of 1835, he gladly 
accepted a call to Christ Church, Mobile. Here he 
remained until 1846, when his rapidly failing health 
compelled him to desist from all active work. During 
the Church's acephalous period Mr. Lewis was always 
President of the Diocesan Conventions, until at the 
last, the Convention of 1844, when he felt physically 
unable to perform the duties of the office. Until 1846 
he was constantly President of the Standing Com- 
mittee. Missionary work he felt unable to do. He 
refused to leave his parish ' ' for any purpose save the 
reinstatement of his health," but in his parish, which 
though of moderate size in comparison with present 
day parishes in Alabama, was the largest in the dio- 
cese, his single-hearted devotedness was unsparing of 
bodily ease, and he was eager to spend and to be spent 
in the service of his flock. His duties were performed 
with burning zeal and wasting application. His con- 
scientiousness led him into a prodigal expenditure of 
his strength, shortening his life, and bringing him to 



Il8 HISTORY OF THE 



the grave at the early age of forty-four. He died 
during the rectorship of the Rev. Mr. Knapp, and was 
buried beneath the chancel of Christ Church, where a 
handsome tablet marks his resting-place. The text of 
the funeral discourse delivered by Mr. Knapp was 
strikingly appropriate: "Hold such in reputation; 
because for the work of Christ he was nigh unto 
death, not regarding his life." 

The Rev. Nathaniel P. Knapp was the second giant 
of this earlier period. He came from New York, 
from a tutorship in the General Theological Semi- 
nary, in 1837, and, settling in Iyowndes county, 
founded St. Peter's Church, at Benton, in January, 
1838.* That this congregation was not a great tax 
upon his energies may be inferred from a brief note 
in his report to the Convention: " Number of com- 
municants, so far as ascertained, two." From this 
circumscribed field he was called, after four or five 
months, to Tuskaloosa. Here he succeeded the Rev. 
Andrew Matthews, whose private character and public 
reputation had not materially improved the possibili- 
ties of parochial growth or of ministerial ease. But 
though the parish was small, the communicants rang- 
ing in number between fourteen and twenty-one, year 
by year, the growth during Mr. Knapp 's rectorship 
was constant. In 1843 Mr. Knapp resigned charge of 
the parish at Tuskaloosa and went North. Here he 
fell in with Mr. Lewis, whose parishioners had sent 
him thither for recreation. It was a summer of dread- 

* This church was the foundation of that which now exists 
at Tyler's Station, nine miles west. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 119 

ful suffering in Mobile, yellow fever being epidemic. 
Knowing the condition of Mr. Lewis' health, Mr. 
Knapp promptly offered and successfully urged him- 
self as Mr. I^ewis ' substitute in Mobile for the re- 
mainder of the summer. In Mobile he worked inde- 
fatigably and shunned no exposure, until he himself 
was stricken down. After a serious illness, Mr. Lewis 
having returned and the plague abated, he went to 
Cuba for the winter, and on his return became rector 
of St. John's, Montgomery. Here his rectorship of 
four years was most successful. His indomitable will 
and comprehensive grasp of events is well illustrated 
by an incident that occurred in the religious life of 
the town: Late in the summer of 1845 a wave of 
mental and spiritual excitement swept through Mont- 
gomery, attending and following a great "revival." 
Every congregation was affected, and in St. John's 
parish wide-spread sympathy with the revival was en- 
gendered. Had a less able man been rector of the 
parish, it is conceivable that, in view of his congre- 
gation's condition, he would have pursued one of two 
courses, according to his theological bias: Either he 
would have joined in the union revival meetings, or 
he would have inveighed against the whole idea of 
revivals. Alabama clergy have been known to do 
both. Mr. Knapp did neither. His unqualified un- 
belief in a man-made ministry, and his abhorrence of 
schism, even when but hereditary, forbade him to go 
with the revivalists. And his conviction, that beneath 
the waves of commotion that agitated the community 
there was an undercurrent which, by its deep and 



120 HISTORY OF THE 



steady flow, marked the brooding of the Holy Spirit, 
rendered it impossible for him to set himself in oppo- 
sition. But set as a watchman in Israel, and purpos- 
ing to keep his own congregation from being driven 
about by every wind of doctrine, he foregrasped the 
coming Advent-tide, multiplied the services of the 
Church, visited from house to house and held cottage 
prayer-meetings, and, continuing thus six hours a day 
for three months, not only prevented the loss to the 
parish of its more emotional members, but actually 
turned the tide and greatly increased both the numeri- 
cal and the spiritual strength of his congregation. In 
two years the number of communicants had quadru- 
pled; for, with an uncompromising loyalty to the 
Church, Mr. Knapp had the rare faculty of bending 
all circumstances, whether favorable or hostile, to the 
furtherance of the Kingdom. In 1848 he entered upon 
the rectorship of Christ Church, Mobile, following 
Mr. Lewis' successor, the Rev. Francis Priolean Lee, 
who had died, a victim to yellow fever, after a brief 
but brilliant rectorship of only ten months. Though 
lacking the fine physique and personal magnetism of 
these two predecessors, Mr. Knapp fell not one whit 
behind them in both the excellence and the accepta- 
bility of his labors. He died here in the harness in 
1851.* 

* Fifty-nine of his sermons, edited by the Rev. William 
Johnson, were published in a very large royal octavo vol- 
ume of five hundred pages in 1855. They are of widely 
varying degrees of excellence. Mr. Knapp's reputation 
would have been the better upheld had the volume been one- 
third as large. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 121 

These two men, Lewis and Knapp, were head and 
shoulders above their contemporaries. Of Lewis, 
Bishop Cobbs bore witness "that by his sound Evan- 
gelical preaching, by his holy walk and conversation, 
and by his ardent zeal and devotion, he had contrib- 
uted more than any other one man towards building 
up the Church in Alabama." Of his "old and be- 
loved friend," Mr. Knapp, the Bishop said: "He 
had contributed not a little to the moulding of the 
diocese's character, being a sound, well-balanced the- 
ologian, a thoroughly conservative Churchman, and a 
most faithful, practical and evangelical preacher." 

Of the other prominent clergy of this period not 
much needs, or can, be said. Their lives were devoid 
of sensational events. Year after }^ear they labored 
quietly and faithfully, not sounding a trumpet before 
their good deeds. The recollections of their surviv- 
ors are vague and unsatisfactory, and the written 
records are painfully meager. Scanty parochial re- 
ports, incidental remarks, and allusions by the Bishop, 
give momentary, phantom-like glimpses of those 
strong personalities. Hanson, the patient missionary 
of Greene and Marengo; Lee, the pious, far-seeing 
builder of St. Paul's, Carlo wville; Massey, the inde- 
fatigable "proselyter" of Mobile, founder of St John's 
and rector of Trinity; Cushman, the cheerful and 
scholarly incumbent of Cahaba; Ingraham, the Bib- 
lical student, whose "Pillar of Fire," "Throne of 
David," and "Prince of the House of David," will 
live long in literature, to the shame of those who, 
though following the path blazed out by him, have 
— 9 



122 CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 

followed but to wrest Scripture to their readers' de- 
struction; Mitchell, the Bishop's right arm in the 
rapidly growing parish of St. John's, Montgomery; 
and Stickney, of Marion, the most advanced Church- 
man and successful educator in Alabama; — these are 
men whose deeds live after them, and whose memory 
is fragrant, though they did the work of the Master 
without ostentation and left behind them no connected 
story of their lives. 



T 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE THEOLOGICAL TONE. 

HE character of a diocese is as real as the charac- 
ter of an individual. There may be inharmoni- 
ous elements here and there, but a composite photo- 
graph gives the mental and spiritual characteristics in 
clear-cut lines. Thus, no one would mistake the 
Churchmanship of Virginia for that of Fond du Lac, 
although the theology of scattered individuals in each 
diocese differs from the theology of the other diocese 
by less than any appreciable quantity. 

So in this diocese, despite the few extreme teach- 
ers that have arisen on either wing, there is a 
tone of theology and Churchmanship that has never 
changed in essence, however much the expression of 
it has changed to grapple with new conditions. "Ala- 
bama Churchmanship" is regarded in Virginia as 
having Romish tendencies, and in Fond du L,ac as 
being little better than Episcopated Sectarianism. But 
in truth, while Rome is not its goal, neither is Geneva 
its a nti- Christ. 

As now, so in the episcopate of the first Bishop, 

Alabama held that the via media was both the via 

salutis and the via veritatis. The theology of the 

Early Fathers of the diocese was in harmony with that 

of their diocesan. They chose him because he was 

of their poise. He stamped his own theology upon 

the diocese, in congregations and in his young clergy, 

123 



124 HISTORY OF THE 



and the stamp has been repeated and the impression 
deepened by his successors and theirs. 

It should not be forgotten that this was a time of 
alarm and contention in the national Church and in 
many diocesan households. The inevitable leaning 
of democratic Americans towards a man-made demo- 
cratic "church," and their abhorrence of all imperi- 
alism, but especially of papal imperialism, marked 
with the mark of the Beast, was intensified by there- 
cent developments in the Church of England, precip- 
itated by Newman's famous "Tract 90," and result- 
ing in more than three hundred clerical, and an 
unknown number of lay, defections to the Church of 
Rome. Everywhere men were looking for tenden- 
cies, tendencies were all presupposed to be Romeward, 
and the slightest departure from established ecclesi- 
astical customs was viewed with alarmed suspicion. 

Consequently many of the Bishop's warnings, in 
sermon and in pastoral, were directed against the in- 
troduction of any novel practices, however innocent, 
in the conduct of services. The so-called ' ' Cath- 
olicity ' ' of Mediaeval Europe received many a hard 
rap from him; but so also did that spurious liberality 
which condones sectarianism and declares that ' ' one 
church is as good as another. ' ' The Bishop was not 
an alarmist, and his clearheaded diagnosis of the eccle- 
siastical situation in 1848 must have given much com- 
fort to the faint-hearted. His conviction was that 
more uniformity in doctrine existed than might be 
inferred from many of the publications that were so 
frequently appearing. ' ' True it is, " he acknowledged, 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. I 25 

"that there is diversity of opinion; but it is not so 
much because fundamental errors are held and taught, 
but because of the giving of undue prominence to 
some particular doctrines which some men, from edu- 
cation, position, or association, consider of peculiar 
importance — and who thus, whilst they do not deny, 
yet undervalue or partially present other doctrines of 
equal obligation. ' ' 

"There maybe those," he goes on, "who enter- 
tain low and defective views of the Church, her 
Ministry, and her Sacraments; but this class is con- 
stantly becoming more and more decided and con- 
servative in their principles and their practices. There 
may be those who are ultra in their views; who attach 
a superstitious and semi-papistical value to ordinances; 
who indulge in much affectation and cant about primi- 
tive Catholicity; who, though oftentimes but novices 
in the Church, take upon themselves to be wiser 
expounders of the Articles and Offices than the aged, 
learned, and godly men who framed the Prayer Book; 
yet this class of men, holding views so grossly incon- 
sistent with the standards of the Church, and being 
so extremely ridiculous by their pharisaical and sanc- 
timonious observances of various little peculiarities, 
will either gradually be rebuked by the good common- 
sense and the sound evangelical piety of the Church, 
or in extreme cases will ultimately pass over to a more 
corrupt and congenial communion. I would again 
repeat it as my firm belief, that the great body of the 
Church is sound not only in regard to the doctrines 
taught in the Offices of the Prayer Book, but to those 



126 HISTORY OF THE 



great fundamental truths embodied in the Articles and 
Homilies." 

The defection of Bishop Ives of North Carolina 
called forth a new deliverance from Bishop Cobbs, 
who viewed the perversion with mortification and 
shame for the Church, but used the occasion to incul- 
cate a lesson. ' ' There may have been too much 
boasting and self-glorification on our part," he wrote, 
' ' too much overvaluing of Sacraments and Ordi- 
nances, and not enough of the faithful preaching of 
Christ crucified, too much departing from the Prot- 
estant principle of the Church as established at the 
Reformation, too much relaxing of Christian morals 
in the way of apology for worldly conformity, and too 
much of sympathy and of tampering with Romish 
books, with Romish doctrines, and with Romish 
usages. * * * I^et us, therefore, take in good 
part this chastisement, and learn to be more prayer- 
ful, more humble, more faithful, more devoted, and 
more holy. And let us not be driven from distinctive 
principles by the occasional defection of those who 
have gone out from us because they were not of us." 

Again and again did the Bishop seek to impress 
upon the clergy that the charity for whose sake truth 
must be suppressed was in character spurious and in 
benefit ephemeral. In 1849 he wrote : "The doc- 
trine that it is a matter of indifference whether people 
belong to the One, True, Catholic, and Apostolic 
Church, or to any Christian organization of human 
origin, is one pregnant with fearful evil, and one that 
should be boldly met and frankly and fully exposed. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 27 

However this doctrine may be praised and admired 
under the specious name of liberality, yet it is one 
which naturally terminates in an indifference to all 
religion, and not infrequently leads to open infidelity. 
If, then, we really regard the Church as a divine in- 
stitution, let it be fully and openly avowed; let men 
be urged to be united with it as a duty which they 
owe to God; let there be no compromising of her 
claims for the sake of expediency, and no merging of 
her means and her influence with other associations. 
In this way, our children and the members of our con- 
gregation will grow up intelligent, devoted, and con- 
firmed members of the Church. They will be inter- 
ested in her welfare, they will be grounded and settled 
in the faith once delivered to the saints, and will be 
less in danger of falling into schism, either in the di- 
rection of Rome or of sectarianism." 

If the Bishop seemed to dwell unduly upon the dis- 
tinctive rites, customs, and doctrines of the Church, 
he was fully warranted in doing so by the real sym- 
pathy of many of the laity for the unformulated and 
effusive liturgy of sectarianism, towards which they 
felt the more closely drawn the nearer the clergy 
seemed to approach the opus operatum of Roman 
sacramentarianism. He had to steer clear of both 
Scylla and Charybdis, to nourish evangelical piety 
without arousing schismatic tendencies, and to en- 
courage the seeking of sacramental grace without 
infusing a trust in the mere mechanism of a bodily 
deed. To impress upon the diocese the due propor- 
tion of the faith required constant iteration and re- 



128 HISTORY OF THE 



iteration. But while he encouraged conservatism and 
rebuked extremism he put alarmists out of court very 
gently but very firmly. A certain clergyman, in whose 
soundness, sincerity, and ability he had full confi- 
dence, was accused to him of monkish and Romish 
practices. Among other counts it was charged with 
especial gravity that he frequently castigated himself. 
"Does he?" answered the Bishop; "Is that the 
worst ? Then we must forgive him. If he does his 
own whipping depend upon it he will never get near 
so much as he deserves. ' ' 

But the theology of the Bishop had to do with the 
pastoral relation as well as with the ecclesiastical. 
He insisted that it was the duty of the clerg3 r person- 
ally to care for the children and the slaves and to 
train them in the doctrines of Christ and the Church. 
For ceremonialism, for merely formal relationship to 
the Church, for faith without faith-evincing works, he 
had a Christ-like contempt. Any teaching of the 
1 ' wider hope ' ' that encouraged men in the belief that, 
after serving the god of this world all the days of their 
life, they are to be made fit for heaven by a little peni- 
tential sorrow in their last moments, he characterized 
as "an awful thing. ' ' Support of the work of the 
Church, in parish and in diocese, he held to be a 
duty, whose performance was not to be complimented 
as liberality, but whose neglect was to be reprehended 
as sin. This support was to be not merely in money 
but also in personal service, and service must be to 
God's glory, not to the glory of self. In neglect of 
this principle he found the cause of parochial schisms. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 120. 

' ' Did you ever notice how fond the Devil is of the 
Church?" he asked Mr. Lay one day in a stage- 
coach, after striving ineffectually all of the preceding 
day to adjust a parochial controversy. ' ' I have been 
at a great many gatherings, from General Conventions 
down to vestry meetings, and I always find the Devil 
present, and wonderfully zealous for the Church. He 
whispers in the ear of this one and that, ' So far as you 
are personally concerned it would be well to be meek 
and gentle, but, my dear friend, consider the Church, 
consider the interests of evangelical truth ; ' and so he 
persuades them into complacent pharisaism. As I 
was saying," he resumed after a short nap, "the 
Devil is a great apothecary. He knows we won't 
take his poison with the true name upon it, so he 
bottles it up and labels it in big letters ' Principle;' 
and, oh! how poor sinners will indulge in pride, will- 
fulness, party spirit, and selfishness, boasting all the 
while of their zeal for principle."* Very persistently 
and aggressively did he contend against theatre-going 
and ball-room dancing, and, while he did not censo- 
riously judge those whose profession was to teach 
dancing, he distinctly affirmed that he would not 
confirm a dancing-master. 

With the constant pressure of such teaching upon 
clergy and people for sixteen years, the Churchman- 
ship of the diocese in those days is not a matter for 
discussion. Though many of the clergy are now 
spoken of as " old-fashioned High- Churchmen," they 

* This anecdote is given in Bishop Lay's Church Review 
memories of Bishop Cobbs. 



130 HISTORY OF THE 



differed from new-fashioned High- Churchmen only 
in frowning upon a ritualism that seemed both ill- 
advised and corrupting. The services were, no doubt, 
painfully bare, and the music was execrable, but the 
trumpet gave no uncertain sound. Six years before 
Bishop Cobbs came to Alabama the Committee on the 
state of the Church could say : ' ' When the Church 
has been exhibited, it has been as The Church; and 
as such is it still called for. ' ' * Lewis and Knapp have 
indeed been denominated " Low-Churchmen, "t but 
no one that has carefully read their published writ- 
ings can so place them. Lewis affirmed that (1) 
Christ established a Church, (2) organized its minis- 
fry j (3) ordained its Sacraments and Ordinances, (4) 
and that these all were to be perpetuated to the end 
of the world: he only protested (and who does not 
agree with him ? ) that Church, ministry, and sacra- 
ments were not the end but the means to the end, 
which was ' ' Salvation to all who place their trust in 
Christ." Knapp" s Churchmanship is forever placed 
beyond question by these words from his published 
sermon on the text "The Lord added daily to the 
Church such as should be saved": ''The Gospel 
never was designed to be preached independently of 
the Church — nor can it be, for the Church is part of 
the Gospel. * * * We maintain that in order to 
be entitled to call ourselves and the communion to 
which we belong ' members of the Church ' we must 
have the same doctrines and ordinances that the first 

* Journal of 1838, page 17. 

+ Christ Church, Mobile, Year Book for 1S83, page 43. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 131 

Christians had, and be in fellowship with the Apos- 
tles through the pervading bond of a ministry derived 
from them; that is, through the Apostolical Succes- 
sion. That we have this succession, this connecting 
bond, we can distinctly prove, as clearly as we prove 
the divine origin of our religion. ' ' 

Such is the clear-cut, decisive teaching that Bishop 
and Priests alike gave the Churchmen of Alabama in 
the fourth and fifth decades of the present century. 
Much vaguer teaching was occasionally heard; but it 
was this definiteness and dogmatism, this doctrine 
tangible enough for the people to grasp, that com- 
mended itself to the hearers; and it was these cour- 
ageous ministers, who did not hesitate to preach the 
truth in love, that reaped the most bounteous harvests 
in their own day and left the most fruitful fields of the 
present generation. 



CHAPTER XV. 

PARISH LIFE. 

DOMESTIC details reveal character more truth- 
fully than do widely-heralded deeds wrought 
before the public gaze. The gossip and small-talk of 
parish life tell us much that never comes to light in 
the study of diocesan institutions and of ecclesiastical 
development. To these it is purposed to turn for a 
while. 

Only once in this episcopate did the diocese attempt 
to intermeddle in affairs strictly pastoral, parochial, or 
personal. In 1849 the Convention received, as part 
of a new system of canons, a series of provisions en- 
titled ' ' Of Lay Discipline. ' ' The four canons of the 
series provided: ( 1 ) That every communicant should 
have daily family prayers; (2) That heads of families 
should instruct those under them, and send their chil- 
dren to the minister's catechetical instructions; (3) 
That notorious transgressors should be excluded, as 
from Holy Communion, so from Sponsorship; and 
(4) That the names of confirmed persons neglecting 
the Lord's Supper for the space of twelve months 
should be stricken from the roll of communicants. 
This attempt to enforce natural duty and to supersede 
pastoral responsibility by legislative enactment re- 
ceived short shrift from the Convention of 1850, when 
the canons were finally acted upon. Only the fourth 

provision met with favor; it was in force just one year, 

132 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 33 

and no similar experiment in legislation has since 
been attempted. 

The question, What constitutes a communicant? 
met with more uncertain response then than meets it 
now. The present substitution of the words ' ' Con- 
firmed Persons ' ' for the word ' ' Communicant ' ' was 
not often made in those days. A communicant was, 
in general, not merely a potential communicant; he 
was an actual participant in the Supper of the Lord. 
Consequently the number of confirmed persons re- 
siding in a parish cannot be determined from records 
extant. Neither are we assisted in arriving at the 
approximate number of the confirmed by the fact that 
actual communicants are about seventy-five per cent, 
of the confirmed, for not only was the distinction 
between confirmed persons and de facto communi- 
cants not universal, but we cannot say positively what 
clergymen made the distinction and what did not. 
The only inference that can be made reasonably is, 
that a parish reporting twenty communicants was 
larger than is a parish reporting the same number to- 
day; but how much larger, it is impossible to estimate. 

Of course the universal American custom of ' ' call- 
ing ' ' ministers held sway from the beginning. In 
many parishes it was the custom to call a minister for 
a single year. * If he was liked he was re-elected from 
year to year. If he was not liked he was quietly 
dropped when the term of partnership expired, and 
another minister was chosen. In this way the awk ward- 

* This is stiil the nominal custom in St. Thomas' Church, 
Greenville. 



134 HISTORY OF THE 

ness of asking a clergyman to resign and the cruelty 
of starving him into resigning were alike avoided. 
The hottest-headed partisan was, as a rule, able to 
wait a few months. Dr. Lewis was thus elected rector 
of Christ Church, Mobile, eleven times. 

The ministerial salary, not over-large in prospect, 
was oftentimes even smaller in realization. Not a few 
of the clergy were compelled to eke out their salary 
by adding school-teaching to their clerical duties. 
Some of the clergy must have welcomed a bright Sun- 
day morning and a large congregation with somewhat 
more than spiritual joy, for their whole support came 
from the unpledged Sunday offerings of the congre- 
gation. Others whose stipends were fixed did not for 
a considerable period state the amount in their annual 
reports, excusing themselves on the ground that this 
was a private parochial arrangement to which it would 
be indelicate to refer publicly. 

However hard this training, this combination of 
secular duties with ministerial, it was beneficial in 
that the Body Ecclesiastical in Alabama was, in the 
fullest measure, a "teaching Church." Parochial 
schools were multiplied, and in them were laid the 
foundations of Christian life and belief. The times 
were especially propitious for such schools, as no 
scheme of common-school education at public expense 
had yet been broached, and the schools were long in 
a flourishing condition in many places, notably in 
Mobile, Montgomery, Tuskaloosa, and Marion. In 
the last-named place the Rev. W. A. Stickney's school 
was especially successful, numbering more than eighty 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 35 

pupils and having a standing list of applicants for 
vacancies year after year.* Trinity Church, Mobile, 
conducted a free school which numbered more than 
a hundred pupils. Christ Church, Tuskaloosa, was 
never without its parish school. Much religious in- 
struction was given in the Rev. Mr. Cook's school at 
Talladega. 

The operation of these schools brought about more 
frequent services throughout the diocese. It was a 
short step from brief devotional exercises in the school- 
house to public prayer in the church or chapel, and 
this step at least three congregations had taken by 
1854 — Montgomery, Tuskaloosa, and Marion. Daily 
Morning Prayer was said in these parishes, and in 
Marion more than three hundred services were held 
in a single year. The example of these parishes was 
followed more or less closely in places where there 
were no parochial schools. 

That was not the Golden Age of parish finances. 
Parishes lived upon their daily bread and were never 
known to gather more than enough for their imme- 
diate necessities. The economic principle that a col- 
lege that does its work properly is always on the verge 
of bankruptcy was applied to the work of a parish. 
One source of embarrassment remained for many 
years. Quite a number of churches had been built on 
a kind of joint-stock plan; that is, instead of giving 

* The name of the school was " St. Wilfred's." The name 
of the parish was at first " St. Michael's," but at the time of 
its incorporation, in 1853, the parish took the name of the 
school. 



136 HISTORY OF THK 



outright towards the erection of a church building 
men bought the pews. These they thereafter held in 
fee-simple. Rectors, wardens, and vestrymen had no 
control over them, and could not add subsequent con- 
ditions of ownership. Not till the grotesqueness of 
dedicating a church to God and still retaining a por- 
tion of it as a private possession that could be bought 
and sold burst upon them did the pew-owners volun- 
tarily begin to make concessions and ultimately sur- 
render the pews absolutely to the parochial authorities. 
It seems to have been almost unthought of that 
there was no necessary relationship between the seat 
a parishioner occupied in the church and the amount 
he contributed to the parish treasury. If he did not 
buy a pew he had to rent one. Free churches were 
so uncommon, especially in the cities, that the build- 
ing of Trinity Church, Mobile, as a free church was 
heralded far and wide. Only pew-holders and sub- 
scribers of an amount equal to the rental of the cheap- 
est pew were permitted to vote at parish meetings. 
It was not the parishioners that voted, but the pews. 
One vote went with an entire pew. Those persons 
that economized by renting a pew conjointly had each 
the corresponding fraction of a vote. The highest 
bidder had the choice of pews, and the poor sat imme- 
diately under the three-decker pulpit or far back 
beneath the gallery or behind obstructing columns. 
The first parish to break away from this system of 
owned or rented pews was Christ Church, Tuskaloosa. 
Bishop Cobbs, who was rector of the parish, looked 
upon rented pews as ' ' a hedge of thorns and briars ' ' 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 37 

to keep the poor out of the church, and under his 
advice and urgent entreaty the vestry, in 1849, de- 
clared that the pews should ever after be free. Trinity 
and St. John's, Mobile, soon followed this good ex- 
ample, but the old system long continued good 
enough for the majority of parishes. 

Song services and the like on Sunday nights had 
already crept in and to some extent displaced the 
worship of God and the preaching of Christ. These 
services were not infrequently arranged by commit- 
tees from the vestry in consultation with the choir- 
leader; the rector was not supposed to be interested. 
Much has been said of the lack of musical culture in 
those days; but the following action of the Tuskaloosa 
vestry, on November 12, 1831, would justify the 
inference that the members of at least one vestry were 
thorough vocalists: 

"Resolved, That in accordance with the custom of 
the Pro. Kpis. Church in the U. S. the vestry of 
Christ Church, Tuscaloosa, will celebrate an Oratorio 
of Sacred Musick, in this church, at some convenient 
time to be specified by the Committee of Arrange- 
ments to be appointed for that purpose. ' ' 

While many of these details reveal to us a Church 
striving, not always wisely, to fulfil its mission, others 
declare that in some respects the Church in Alabama 
was forty and fifty years ahead of the old-established 
dioceses of the North and East. The two most nota- 
ble instances of this diocesan precocity were: The 
Brotherhood of the Church, and the Bishop's Cathedral 
— 10 



138 HISTORY OF THE 



project ; of both which remarkably little is known by 
Churchmen of to-day. 

Leaving consideration of the Cathedral project for 
the ensuing chapter, we may now speak more par- 
ticularly of the Brotherhood of the Church, which 
antedated the Brotherhood of St. Andrew by more 
than a generation. This society was an inter- 
parochial organization of the laymen of Mobile. Un- 
successful attempts had been made to establish it in 
the summer of 1853 and the summer of 1854, when 
yellow fever was epidemic. Finally the organization 
was effected, on May 3, 1855, by four laymen, who 
determined not to wait for others. The objects of this 
Brotherhood were far more comprehensive than those 
of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, and were five-fold, 
viz.: 1st, To promote Christian love and fellowship 
among its members by frequent intercourse, and 
mutual aid and encouragement in good work; 2nd, To 
relieve and provide for its members when sick or 
otherwise disabled; 3rd, To secure Christian burial to 
the bodies of its deceased members and other Church- 
men, and to succor their widows and orphans; 4th, 
To assist the clergy, according to its ability, in re- 
lieving the sick and destitute, especially those of our 
own communion; 5th, As soon as able, to establish a 
reading room and library for the use of its members; 
and to adopt such other measures, from time to time, 
as may be deemed expedient, and in accordance with 
the original design.* All five of these objects were 
realized within the first two years of the Brotherhood's 



* Article II. of Constitution. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 39 

existence. Within three months about a score of 
members had been enrolled, in anticipation of another 
yellow fever epidemic. But this 3^ear Mobile was 
exempt from the scourge. Norfolk and Portsmouth. 
Virginia, however, suffered from the most malignant 
type of fever that ever appeared on this side of the 
Atlantic; and the Brotherhood, carrying out the spirit 
of their organization, gave noble succor to the afflicted 
cities. Two of the members volunteered to go to the 
relief of the helpless sufferers, hundreds of whom 
were dying from sheer neglect; these two and twelve 
others had in a few moments subscribed enough to 
pay all expenses of the intended help, and the 
Brothers were on their journey within twenty-four 
hours. They had abundant opportunity to perform 
the first four of the Brotherhood's obligations. In 
Norfolk alone, out of ten thousand persons remaining 
after the first exodus, two thousand died in two months 
— the proportion of deaths among the whites being one 
out of eve^ three of the white population. Work of 
every kind was suspended, save the work of physi- 
cians, nurses, and grave diggers; and even the daily 
baked bread and the ominous cargoes of coffins were 
brought from Baltimore and Richmond. The general 
intellect and energy seemed alike paralyzed. Through- 
out the epidemic the two Brotherhood men did valiant 
service, returning to Mobile only when the plague 
had disappeared with the advent of cold weather. 
Subsequently, in addition to its altruistic beneficence, 
the Brotherhood combined in itself the two functions 
of a Church Congress and a Bible Society. Many 



140 CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 

subjects of ethics, Churchinanship, and ritual received 
the freest discussion. A sales depot for Bibles, 
prayer books, and wholesome Christian literature in 
general, was successfully operated. 

The Brotherhood of the Church was one of the first 
lay-organizations for personal service in the American 
Church. It was the outcome of a spirit that was felt 
by many individual laymen, and that was manifested 
by them both before and after the attempted organiza- 
tion. Perhaps the most notable example of zeal 
among the laity of this period was the work of Judge 
E. W. Peck, who, in making the rounds of the cir- 
cuit over which he presided, always carried an abun- 
dant supply of Christian and ecclesiastical literature 
in the back of his buggy, and was quick to drop a 
tract where he thought it would do good. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

LAST DAYS OF BISHOP COBBS. 

EARLY in 1856 it became apparent that the Bishop 
was breaking. His health had long been pre- 
carious. He had not spared himself, and his labors 
were now telling on his frame, which, never strong 
even in early life, was now at the age of sixty espe- 
cially susceptible to disorders. It was imperative that 
he temporarily lay aside all work. 

The Convention itself took the matter in hand. 
Through a resolution introduced by its Committee on 
the State of the Church it insisted that the Bishop 
should "take in the present such respite as his medical 
advisers may recommend to him, and exercise in the 
future administration of the diocese a just regard to 
the preservation of his health;" and through the libe- 
rality of its lay delegates * it presented him with a sum 
of money " largely in excess of one thousand dollars," 
with which to travel and recruit his broken-down and 
wasted constitution. 

Availing himself of this opportunity the Bishop 
spent the months of June, July and August in a jour- 
ney to England, returning with what he termed "a 
more than ordinary degree of strength and of health. ' ' 
The phraseology is modest, but his condition war- 
ranted no stronger words. He was enabled, indeed, 

* Especially of Messrs. R. S. Bunker and H. A. Schroeder, 
liberal communicants of Christ Church, Mobile 

141 



142 HISTORY OF THE 



by his indefatigable zeal, to perform a vast amount 
of work, in office, study, and diocese, for two years 
more; but it became evident that he was nearing the 
end of pastoral toil and care. 

As he drew near the close of his earthly labors the 
Bishop's horizon broadened and he meditated large 
projects. During his absence in England the found- 
ing of a University for Southern men, and especially 
Southern Churchmen, had been broached by Bishop 
Polk of Tennessee, and when he returned he fell in 
with it most eagerly, and gave to its furtherance the 
full weight of both his personal and his official influ- 
ence. He and Mr. Lay were present at Lookout 
Mountain, on July 4, 1857, when the work was form- 
ally inaugurated by the episcopal, clerical, and lay 
representatives of seven dioceses. At the meeting 
held in Montgomery, on the twenty-fifth of the follow- 
ing November, to determine the location of the pro- 
posed University, he objected to both Sewanee and 
Atlanta, the leading competitors, and favored the 
neighborhood of Huntsville. Then came the sharp, 
severe, but short-lived financial crisis of 1857, during 
which all progress in the work ceased. As soon, how- 
ever, as the squall was over interest revived. Ala- 
bama attempted to secure a reconsideration of the vote 
by which the University was to be established at 
Sewanee, but after a frank conference with the other 
trustees it humbled its diocesan pride before other and 
more important considerations. Bishop Cobbs told 
the Convention of 1859 that be expected the Church- 
men of Alabama to subscribe a quarter of a million 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 43 

dollars towards the University of the South. The 
rapid march of events prevented the subscription of 
more than a small fraction of this sum. For the next 
six years Southern men that had money had small 
interest in launching new educational enterprises; and 
afterwards they that were interested were about penni- 
less. The Bishop never lost interest, however, and 
probably the last public function in which he partici- 
pated was the laying of the corner-stone of the prin- 
cipal building of the University, in the second week 
of October, i860. 

Bishop Cobbs' other great vision was that of a 
Cathedral church and organization located in Mont- 
gomery, and to be known as ' ( All Souls'. ' ' Although 
he never publicly alluded to this idea, it is almost 
certain that it was one of the fruits of his visit to 
England in 1856. 

The Bishop was not afraid of cathedrals, although 
the Church of England had them; and he was not 
afraid to project the establishment of a cathedral, 
although the American Church furnished no prece- 
dent. It is true that, a few years before, Bishop Kip 
of California had placed his Episcopal chair in Grace 
Church, San Francisco, and called that church his 
Cathedral; but this he did by virtue of his rectorship 
of the parish which he exercised in conjunction with 
the oversight of the jurisdiction, and when his incum- 
bency ceased his chair was removed and Grace Cathe- 
dral was again only Grace Church. * But the Cathedral 

* Hon. James M. Woolworth, L,L. D., in The Church Cyclo- 
pedia, art. CathkdraIv. 



144 HISTORY OF THE 



that Bishop Cobbs planned was of entirely different 
order. It is only as a temporary makeshift that Bish- 
ops engage in active parochial work; when they 
confine themselves to their Episcopal duties they are 
in the anomalous position of being chief pastor, yet 
having no home — of being called upon to perform 
Episcopal duties, yet depending on the courtesy of a 
parish priest for a consecrated building wherein to 
perform them. 

To remove this anomaly was the starting point of 
Bishop Cobbs' plan; but the vision became broader: 
The Cathedral must be a large building, seating fifteen 
hundred whites in the body of the church and one 
thousand negroes in the galleries. About the quad- 
rangle in which the Cathedral should stand were to 
be nine separate buildings, whose purposes declare 
the scope of the projected work, viz.: (i) diocesan 
library and Bishop's office, (2) sexton's house, (3) 
dean's residence, (4) infirmary and house of mercy, 
(5) home for five deaconesses, (6) house for theolog- 
ical students, (7) house for high classical school, (8) 
house for six or eight deacons, (9) steward's house 
for boarding occupants of last three houses. The esti- 
mated cost of erection was $175,000, and this the 
Bishop thought could be collected in ten years. 

The cost of supporting the work after its inception 
was also thoroughly digested. The Dean was to have 
the offertory ; the deacons were to do missionary work 
for a hundred miles out of Montgomery on every 
Sunday and live on the salaries paid by their several 
stations — spending the weekdays at home, reading 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 45 

and studying, assisting in pastoral ministrations and 
fitting themselves for independent labor, and working 
one hour every day in the flower-, fruit-, vegetable-, 
and grape-gardens; the candidates for Orders were, as 
elsewhere, to support themselves, and were to have 
the privilege of teaching in extra-Cathedral schools in 
the city; the deaconesses were also to teach, and were 
to supplement their income by the gifts of the charhy- 
box at Cathedral-door; the steward's support would 
come from payment of board by deacons, candidates, 
and grammar-school bo3^s from a distance; the sexton's 
salary would be provided by special contributions ; and 
the Bishop's was already paid by the diocese. The 
Bishop set his heart upon the Cathedral as the start- 
ing point of vast ecclesiastical development. He 
wrote, under date of January 18, 1859, that it would 
1 ' enable a Bishop to be not simply Chairman of the 
Convention, but the heart, the motive power, and the 
controlling agent, of his Diocese, and thus let him be, 
what has never been in our Church in the United 
States, a real Bishop in the Gospel sense of the word. 
* * Tell Mr. Lay that after Convention I shall 
begin to collect materials for this great work, and that 
if he is my successor he must carry out my plan in 
ten years' time. * * As David felt himself un- 
worthy to build the Temple, but contented himself 
with collecting materials, I am restrained from begin- 
ning this work, not only by my age, but by a feeling 
similar to that of David." 

The dream of a visionary it was; but the visions of 
one century are the realities of the next. It is not a 



146 HISTORY OF THE 



hazardous statement that the next century will not 
attain its majority before not merely Montgomery, but 
also Birmingham, shall have a Cathedral erected on 
Bishop Cobbs' plan — the centers of all the educational 
and missionary work of the respective dioceses. 

But while thus planning for the future, in which he 
had so much confidence, the Bishop grew less and less 
cheerful as to the present. His sermons and Con- 
vention addresses began to be marked by the dark 
and desponding tone of overwrought zeal, which re- 
veals more clearly the nearness of subjective collapse 
than the enormity of the objective evils assailed or 
deplored. The Church seemed to him to be con- 
forming more and more to the world; and in his 
despair that such should be its rapid drift after so 
many years of his own unstinted labors and the labors 
of his faithful yoke-fellows, he cried out: "When a 
whole country is submerged by a wide-wasting inun- 
dation, it is too late to talk of dykes and levees: and 
all that a prudent man can then do is to flee to some 
eminence and, if possible, to save his own life." It 
was the cry of despondency that an ever lengthening 
line of Elijahs is uttering through the ages. 

The gloom that oppressed the Bishop touched the 
deep heart of the Church. In words of sympathy 
and stout encouragement, and of trustfulness in the 
guiding Spirit, Henry C. Lay, as Chairman of the 
Committee on the State of the Church, expressed the 
feelings of the entire diocese. ' ' During the last 
year," he said, "the Bishop has exceeded in labor 
the laborious years that have gone before. And never 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 47 

have his efforts been more acceptable than now. We 
anticipate for him many years of increasing useful- 
ness. In this his hour of depression and foreboding 
we are bold to assure him, in the name of his Diocese, 
of its warmest confidence and attachment. We feel 
amply warranted in saying for each and every mem- 
ber of this Convention that we are proud to have for 
our leader one whose heart we know and whose sym- 
pathy has never failed us. Let him be well assured 
that in his battle against the Devil and the World we 
will not fail to follow in his charge. — It remains to be 
considered that the evils which have been alluded to 
are by no means submitted to in silence. The ser- 
mons and the private conferences of the present Con- 
vention give assurance that the watchmen do not 
slumber, and that faithful warnings fail not to be 
given. In the present day there are many influences 
wmich are not for good; and while we do what we can 
to resist them, we may well be content to leave all in 
the hands of Him who in the days of His flesh 
watched from afar the ship rocked upon the waves, 
and came mysteriously to the relief of the rowers, 
when spent with labor and still far from shore. ' ' 

These words, unmistakably the sentiments of the 
Convention, which emphasized their delivery by its 
profound silence, and followed as they were by many 
private interviews in which hearts were opened, 
moved the Bishop greatly, and gave him renewed 
courage for his work. The next year was a season of 
unremitting toil and overflowing returns. The re- 
ceipts for diocesan missions were larger than ever 



148 HISTORY OF THE 



before, the Diocesan Girls' School began to take on 
substantial form, nearly every congregation received 
stated ministrations, and the number of persons con- 
firmed exceeded that of any preceding year. 

Throughout the summer and early fall of i860 the 
Bishop continued his visitations steadily. In the lat- 
ter part of October, having completed this work in 
North Alabama, he returned to Montgomery, and 
thence, without stopping a single day, went over to 
Prattville and Autaugaville. At the latter of these 
villages, on October 21, he made the last visitation 
of his life. Thenceforward he remained at home 
calmly awaiting the end. All his immediate family 
were summoned to his bedside and all were present 
at the last, his sons and daughters and their husbands 
and wives. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper 
was received by them all. The dying father, rising* 
partly in his bed, blessed his children like a patriarch 
of old, exclaiming with weeping eyes and overflowing 
heart, "Behold, Lord, here am I, and those that 
thou hast given me!" 

It was on the eleventh day of January, 1861, that 
he passed away. On that day Alabama seceded from 
the Union. Though a true Southern man and loyal 
to his State, Bishop Cobbs, in common with thousands 
of other men in the South, was heartily opposed to 
Secession. The growing probability and final cer- 
tainty of national disruption and fratricidal warfare 
had been to him a great grief, and, although his last 
official act was to direct the clergy of the diocese to 
refrain from using the Prayer for the President of the 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 149 

United States so soon as the state and diocese of 
Alabama were no longer within the limits of the 
United States, he prayed that he might not live to see 
this great calamity. His prayer was granted. The 
State Convention which was to determine the question 
of Secession was sitting in Montgomery less than two 
miles from the home of the dying prelate. The Bishop 
passed into Paradise at twenty minutes past noon. 
The Convention was at that moment preparing for the 
final vote. Within an hour after Bishop Cobbs' death 
Alabama had seceded. 



PART THIRD. 



The Episcopate of Bishop Wilmer. 



CHAPTER I. 

A CONFEDERATE DIOCESE- 

THE Diocesan Convention of May, 1861, met in 
Montgomery, and was largely attended. The 
War of the Secession was under weigh. The bom- 
bardment of Fort Sumter was only two weeks back in 
history. Actual fighting in the field had not yet be- 
gun. The entire South was filled with an enthusiasm 
that foregrasped ultimate and sweeping victory. No 
man dared sit at the feet of Cassandra. Under the 
benign influence of a new and thoroughly homo- 
geneous nation the prosperity of both Church and 
State was assured. Moreover a Bishop was to be 
elected, and the future relationship of the diocese, a 
lone star in the ecclesiastical firmament, with other 
sovereign dioceses was to be determined. Both secu- 
lar enthusiasm and ecclesiastical excitement com- 
bined to cause a full attendance of clergy and laity. 

First and foremost of the matters to be settled was 
the formal secession of the Church in Alabama from 
the Church in the United States. It was argued that 
the State's secession rendered corresponding action by 
the diocesan Church imperative. Some delegates 
wished to go slow; and these made the point that the 
secession, since it involved a change in the Constitu- 
tion, must go over to the next annual Convention. 
The contention was just; it was sustained by the 
President of the Convention, the Rev. F. R. Hanson; 
—11 153 



154 HISTORY OF THE 



but an appeal was taken and the Convention by a 
large majority overruled the Chair's decision. The 
same fate awaited the point of order that the secession, 
since it involved a change in the Canons, must lie 
over. The Convention did not intend, in an extraor- 
dinary crisis, to bind itself by rules that contemplated 
only normal conditions. It was overwhelmingly 
determined to withdraw, and withdraw immediately, 
from organic union with the National Church of a 
foreign nation. The declaration of secession was 
adopted, and the act of secession was completed by 
the Convention's order to the Secretary to strike from 
the Journal the names of delegates to the General 
Convention of the Church in the United States, and 
its election of six deputies to a General Council of the 
dioceses situated in the seceded States. This latter 
course had been suggested by Bishops Polk and Elli- 
ott, with a view to the organization of the dioceses 
into a national Church. The deputies elected were 
the Rev. Messrs. Banister, Mitchell, and Pierce, and 
Messrs. J. D. Phelan, A. W. Ellerbee, and F. S. 
Lyon. 

The occasion was by many deemed most propitious 
for taking initiatory steps towards a division of the dio- 
cese. An elaborate scheme was formulated, and 
kept under consideration two whole years. The State 
was to be divided into three dioceses named after the 
cities of Mobile, Montgomery, and Huntsville. The 
division was not imperative, but permissive; when 
any prospective See should contain the requisite 
number of clergy and parishes it should be at liberty 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 55 

to elect its own Bishop and organize its own house- 
hold. After two years the hopes of the most sanguine 
were growing cold, the plan met with no favor from 
Bishop Wilmer, and finally died in a committee- 
room. 

The preliminary work of the Convention having 
been attended to and the Episcopal salary having 
been set at twenty-five hundred dollars,* the election 
of a Bishop was in order. According to Article VIII. 
of the Constitution, which required that the clergy 
should nominate by ballot and the laity ratify or re- 
ject in the same way, a majority of each order deter- 
mining the action of that order, the clergy retired and 
proceeded to their election. It had been Bishop 
Cobbs' earnest desire that Henry C . Lay should suc- 
ceed him. Mr. Lay had long before shown that he 
was good Episcopal timber. Only eighteen months 
before the present Convention the House of Bishops 
had elected him Missionary Bishop of Arkansas, and 
he had been consecrated during the session of the 
General Convention. Being Bishop, not of a Diocese, 
but of a Missionary jurisdiction, he could be trans- 
lated.! His name was presented to the clergy, and 
was strongly urged. But unfortunately Mr. Lay had 
lived in Alabama, and his brother clergy knew his 
faults as well as (or shall we say better than ?) his 
virtues. It was contended that he had assumed the 
air and authority of a Bishop before his elevation to 

* This was increased to $3,000 in 1863. 

t He was translated to Easton, Maryland, in 1869, being 
first Bishop of that Diocese. 



156 HISTORY OF THE 



the Episcopate, and had often forgotten that, though 
of exceptional ability, he was not, therefore, excused 
from observance of the amenities of ministerial inter- 
course. At any rate, whether or not his previous 
manner had been offensive in reality, Mr. Lay was 
not popular among the clergy, and three times they 
rejected the name of one whom the laity would have 
received with acclamation. 

After an interval the clergy returned and informed 
the laity that their choice was the Rev. William 
Pinkne} T y D. D., of Maryland.* A recess was taken, 
and when the Convention re-assembled in the after- 
noon the laity rejected the clerical nomination. The 
clergy again retired to make a new nomination, but 
being unable to agree upon any person suggested that 
the Convention adjourn till night. When night came 
the clergy were still in dead-lock, and requested 
further adjournment till morning. When the morn- 
ing came the clergy were yet unable to make nomina- 
tion, some still pressing for Bishop Lay and more 
desiring to re-nominate Dr. Pinkney, but the majority 
feeling that such insistence w T ould rouse violent oppo- 
sition among the laity. When, therefore, the morn- 
ing session was called to order a committee of confer- 
ence between the clergy and the laity was suggested, 
and a resolution was introduced to postpone the elec- 
tion to a future day. After considerable skirmishing 
and parliamentary wrangling postponement was car- 
ried, and the Convention adjourned to meet in St. 
Paul's Church, Selma, on November 21. 
* Dr. Pinkney became Coadjutor Bishop of Maryland in 1870. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 57 

In the intervening months informal conferences 
were held, views were exchanged, search was made, 
and friction reduced. When the Convention met at 
the appointed time and place it was able to finish its 
labors and adjourn in a single day. A few still desired 
Bishop Lay; but it was not long before the unanimous 
choice of clergy and laity was declared to be the Rev. 
Richard Hooker Wilmer, D. D., of Virginia. The 
Committee to notify Dr. Wilmer of his election con- 
sisted of the Rev. Messrs. Hanson, Massey, and Tich- 
enor, and Messrs. J. D. Phelan, H. L. Alison, and 
H. A. Tayloe. The Standing Committee were in- 
structed to signify to the Senior Bishop of the Church 
in the Confederate States the desire of the Convention 
that the consecration of the Bishop-elect be held in 
Mobile. 

Dr. Wilmer accepted the position offered him. His 
election was ratified by the Bishops and Standing 
Committees of the Confederate Dioceses, and order 
was taken for his consecration. It was attempted to 
have the consecration in Mobile, as had been re- 
quested, but the condition of the country was so 
unsettled that though the time was set and the conse- 
crators were notified to be present, the day arrived 
without the necessary consent of a majority of the 
Bishops. Postponement was unavoidable; and at 
length, on March 6, 1862, the consecration- was held 
in St. Paul's Church, Richmond, Va., Bishop Meade 
presiding and joining with Bishops Johns and Elliott 
in the Laying-on-of-Hands. This was Bishop Meade's 
last public act. He returned from the church to his 
death-bed. 



CHAPTER II. 

BISHOP WIIvMKR'S EARLY UFE. 

THE second Bishop of Alabama was born at Alex- 
andria, Va., on March 15, 18 16. His father, 
the Rev. William H. Wilmer, D. D., was one of three 
brothers, all of whom were clergymen. His brother, 
Dr. George T. Wilmer, also entered the ministry, and 
his cousin, Joseph P. B. Wilmer, became Bishop of 
Louisiana. 

Richard Hooker Wilmer graduated at Yale College 
in 1836, at the age of twenty. Three years later he 
completed his theological course at the Virginia Theo- 
logical Seminary, and was, on Easter Day, 1839, made 
deacon by Bishop Moore. On the next Easter Day 
the same Bishop advanced him to the priesthood. 

His ministerial life exemplified the real itineranc3^ 
of a Church whose theory is that under normal condi- 
tions only death shall dissolve the marriage of min- 
ister and parish. In no one of his charges did Mr. 
Wilmer remain longer than five years. The first few 
years of his ministry were spent in Goochland and 
Fluvanna counties, Va. His success from the first 
was apparent to men, and soon large parishes were 
asking him to become their rector. Offers were made 
to him by wealthy and influential parishes in many 
cities of the diocese, and by congregations in other 
dioceses. Once, and once only, was he bewitched by 

the glamour of ' ' a wider field of usefulness. ' ' For a 

158 



i . , 
: 

8 3 6>attb later he 

the Virginia Ti 

, 1839. n 
On the next Easter 
. , the priesthood, 
real itinera 

.. 

charges did Mr. 
■ 

ochland and 

the first 

were 

ers were made 

in many 

m other 

1 v> 




RICHARD HOOKERIWILMER 

SECOND BISHOP OF ALABAMA 
(FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ABOUT 1895). 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 59 

single year early in his ministry he was rector of St. 
James' Church, Wilmington, N. C. , the largest parish 
in the diocese, and the experience of that single year 
sufficed for a life-time. The climate was insalubrious. 
The high pressure and the thronging anxieties of a 
city parish, allowing little room for mental and spirit- 
ual refreshment, were incompatible with his nature 
and his methods. He felt himself called to be a 
preacher of righteousness — if of the righteousness of 
Jesus Christ, so too (and not less) of the righteousness 
of those who were called of Christ. To do his ap- 
pointed work thoroughly he must have time for study 
and meditation, and opportunity to grasp and eluci- 
date root principles, without which all preaching, 
however earnest and attractive, is superficial in nature 
and ephemeral in effect. So, after this one year in 
Wilmington he went back to Virginia, and entered 
upon his work among the country parishes, whence 
no urban or metropolitan calls afterwards seduced 
him. Five years he ministered in Clarke county, 
three years in Loudoun and Fauquier, and from 
1853 to 1858 in Bedford. 

Every where his preaching was marvellous in effect, 
causing multitudes to turn from sin unto righteous- 
ness. The reason was patent: The grace of God 
was supplemented by the labors of man. The 
preacher placed himself en rapport with his hearers. 
Not like a certain archer of old did he shoot his arrow 
at a venture. Never did he rest content with the bald 
statement of abstract principles. His sermons were 
preached every one to coyer the case of a person 



l6o HISTORY OF THE 



whom he had in both physical and mental view. His 
first step in preparing a sermon was to sit down and write 
a letter of friendly and ministerial rebuke and encour- 
agement to that person ; from this letter, as from a 
chrysalis, evolved the sermon that found and pierced 
the links of sin's protecting armor. 

It was a time that needed just such bold, direct, 
searching sermons. The men of Virginia, with all 
the great unspiritual virility of Esau, deemed it the 
unmanliest thing a man could do to profess and call 
himself a Christian, and rejoiced over the emancipa- 
tion of a youth who began to relate profane jests. Mr. 
Wilmer's first charge embraced about fifty miles of 
country along the James River. It was settled by 
descendants of Church families, and yet it did not 
contain one male communicant. Indeed, not a single 
male communicant was to be found along the river 
from Lynchburg to Richmond, a distance of one hun- 
dred and fifty miles. It was one of the churches in 
this spiritually destitute region that the fox-hunting, 
hard-drinking planters built, under unthinking im- 
pulse, for the " amusement " of their wives. And it 
was in this same church, not long after, that every 
man save one of that drinking party kneeled at the 
chancel rail and confirmed the vows of his long- 
neglected baptism. Of such kind was the material 
Mr. Wilmer had to work upon, and such was the fruit 
of his toil. 

It was the frequent practice of the Virginia clerg}^ 
of that day to hold what were called " associations" — 
forerunners of our present day ' ' missions. ' ' The 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. l6l 

ministers would go forth by twos and preach at one 
point for a week or ten days. It was thus that in the 
early days of his ministry the second Bishop of Ala- 
bama was thrown in contact with the first. A strong- 
attachment grew up between Mr. Cobbs and Mr. 
Wilmer, and to this fondness of the older for the 
younger did Bishop Wilmer attribute the fact that he 
was called to succeed his friend in every charge that 
Mr. Cobbs left — Bedford, Petersburg, Cincinnati, 
Alabama; though he accepted the calls only to Bed- 
ford and Alabama. 

In the summer of 1858 Mr. Wilmer was closing the 
fifth year of his ministry in Bedford county. For 
eighteen j^ears he had been doing missionary work 
that necessarily kept him much from home, and he 
was beginning to feel that the natural duties of hus- 
band and father required his settlement in charge of a 
single congregation. At this time, and almost simul- 
taneously, several parishes invited him to their rector- 
ship. While these invitations were under considera- 
tion he received from a friend with whom he had long 
been intimate — John Stewart, of Brook Hill, — a 
proposition that appealed to him more strongly than 
any other, and ultimately proved irresistible. Mr. 
Stewart was a resident of Henrico County, and lived 
a few miles out from Richmond. He was surrounded 
by many extremely poor people, who were living in 
practical atheism. He did not aspire to the role of 
Dives. He felt that God, having given him wealth, 
and therefore expecting an account of his stewardship, 
it behooved him to expend his money for the benefit 



1 62 HISTORY OF THE 



of the Iyord's children. He proposed, then, that Mr. 
Wilmer come to that neighborhood and attempt to 
instil Christ's teaching into the hearts of the poor; he 
himself would take care of the temporal considera- 
tions. Mr. Wilmer consulted some of his friends. 
They unanimously condemned the proposition as 
visionary, and advised him to reject it without more 
ado; otherwise, they said in effect, he would be 
throwing away several of the best years of his life. 
It was right to make sacrifices for the sake of the 

Gospel; but to cast pearls before swine ! But to 

the heart and the mind of the minister the call 
seemed, after four months of indecision, manifestly 
divine. He accepted it, and at the same time pledged 
himself to give the project a three years' trial. 

When he reached his new field, a field of unknown 
discouragements and possibilities, he had to begin at 
the very foundation. Services were at first held in a 
school-room which was used as the common property 
of all religious denominations. Gradually the hearts 
of the people were gained. Very soon a church was 
built, nominally by the congregation at large, the 
poorest giving his mite, but practically by John Stewart 
and his brother Daniel. Then a rectory was com- 
pleted. The congregations and communicants in- 
creased steadily until, at the end of three years, a 
crowded church and a full chancel-rail attested the 
permanence of the work. The voice of sectarianism 
had always been* that the Church was not suited to 
the unlearned and uncultured. This experiment at 
Emmanuel Church disproved the charge. Its success 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 63 

attracted wide-spread attention, and on all sides it was 
felt that God was with him who had wrought this 
work. Alabama's Bishop was dead, and the bereaved 
diocese called on the Bishop's old friend to take his 
place. 

Dr. Wilmer's pledge of three years' service had 
been redeemed; the work was secure and could safely 
be entrusted to another; and he accepted the call to 
be Bishop of Alabama. 



CHAPTER III. 

WAR TIMES. 

IMMEDIATELY after his consecration Bishop Wil- 
mer came to Alabama and entered upon his Epis- 
copal duties, working throughout Lent in Mobile, and 
making a number of inland visitations near Easter. 
Bishop Green of Mississippi had made the requisite 
confirmational visits in 1861, but much work had 
accumulated which neither a visiting Bishop nor a 
Standing Committee could perform. Within less than 
six weeks the new Bishop had visited nearly the whole 
of the southern portion of the diocese, and had con- 
firmed in Mobile alone ninety persons. 

Scarcely had Bishop Wilmer set foot on Alabama 
soil when he was called upon to decide some questions 
which tested his calibre and whose solution manifested 
the deep sagacity for which he has ever since been 
famous. Day by day it became increasingly probable 
that some of the cities of Alabama would in the not 
distant future be occupied by Federal troops. When 
these troops took possession of towns where there 
were congregations of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
they would find a body of Christians praying, in due 
course of the service, for the President of the Confed- 
erate States. In such cases it was certain that trouble 
would ensue. The clergy asked the Bishop what 
course they should pursue. 

The Bishop's reply was clear and decided: The 
164 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 65 



Diocese of Alabama, an autonomous Church, had 
severed her connection with the Church in the United 
States, which was now a foreign Church; she had 
recognized the facts of geography as stated by a sover- 
eign and independent power, and gladly acquiescing 
had for more than a year used the prayer for those in 
civil authority not in a foreign country, but in the 
1 ' Confederate States ' ' ; the mere occupation of the soil 
by an invading force could not absolve Churchmen 
from their allegiance to the government of their delib- 
erate choice; while armed soldiery might occasionally 
exercise power over them only the Confederate gov- 
ernment exercised authority; and finally, to allow 
military force to overawe them into praying for a 
government which they did not acknowledge to be 
their rightly constituted government would be to be 
guilty of untruthfulness and dishonor.* 

Would the Bishop, then, advise the clergy to use 
the prayer for the President of the Confederate States 
in the very teeth of the Federal soldiery? 

Not so. To do this would be to bring on scandal- 
ous scenes in the sanctuary, and to invite even physic- 
al violence in the house of God. The course to be 
pursued was: First, to inquire of the commanding 
officer whether he designed to interfere with public 
worship; and then, in case he replied that he would 
compel either the prayer for the President of the 
United States to be used or all reference to civil 
authority to be omitted, to close the church, throwing 
the odium and responsibility of suspending the public 
* Bishop Wilmer's first Convention Address, 1862. 



1 66 HISTORY OF THE 



worship of God on those who sought to establish a 
state religion after their own imaginings. This was 
the course followed by nearly all the clergy. One 
minister, however, insisted on keeping his church 
open, and with precisely the result that Bishop Wil- 
mer had foreseen. Disturbance was raised by a Fed- 
eral officer, who presented the alternatives of immediate 
use of the Prayer for the President of the United 
States or immediate cessation of the service. The 
poor clergyman chose the former alternative, and, as 
he afterwards explained apologetically, "used the 
prayer under protest. ' ' The status before God of a 
prayer made under protest, the Bishop grimly said, he 
would leave for others to determine. 

This enforced closing of the churches was not, how- 
ever, immediate, and was never universal. For more 
than a year subsequently only the Tennessee Valle}^ 
was even temporarily in Union hands, and parish 
work went on without undue incident. But as the 
war progressed and the situation became graver, 
women, children, and disabled men formed the entire 
congregation. With the payment of salaries at a 
standstill and a currency depreciated almost be3^ond 
belief, the clerical life became a life of extreme hard- 
ship and simple endurance. To have the entire 
income reduced to one-fourth its former sum in a 
twelve-month, and yet to remain steadfast and un- 
movable at the post of duty, was a severe trial, but 
the clergy to a man comprehended the situation and 
quit them like men. Their hardships were some- 
what mitigated by the liberality with which some of 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 67 

their parishioners furnished them food from their own 
larders. The only parishes that were left without a 
minister were those whose ministers went to the front 
to become army chaplains, and to endure greater 
hardness that they might the better care for the souls 
of the men of the South. A result of their work was 
soon visible in the increased number of young men 
confirmed when at home on furlough. 

Throughout the war the number of confirmed per- 
sons was large, and in the Conventional year 1863-64 
reached a total of three hundred and thirty-seven. It 
was felt that God does not absent Himself from battle- 
fields, and that His Church is not intended to do her 
work only in time of peace and quietude. Men's 
hearts were stirred, and Christ came in the press of 
the multitude. In the larger towns of Montgomery 
and Mobile city missionaries began their work — in the 
former among its English-speaking poor, in the latter 
among the French and Germans. In the Black Belt 
numerous chapels were erected by planters for their 
slaves. Stickney, Cushman, Jarratt, Christian and 
others ministered almost exclusively to the Negroes. 
Stickney alone ministered to the slaves on eight large 
plantations in Marengo and the canebrake, preach- 
ing, baptizing, communicating, organizing into classes 
and watchmen, imposing penance on evil-livers, and 
in many ways reverting to early ecclesiastical disci- 
pline in his vain attempt to impose upon these volatile 
people the indissolubility of morality and religion. 
Menaeos ministered to five congregations just north 
of Stickney 's field, and on a single occasion baptized 



1 68 HISTORY OF THE 



twenty-seven Negro children. In 1864 the Bishop 
himself confirmed twenty-one Negro adults in Tuska- 
loosa, where the Rev. R. D. Nevius was interesting 
himself deeply in the Christianization of the slaves. 
That such work as this should have been conducted 
amidst the horrors of a war of which the Negro was 
the immediate occasion is remarkable. That it 
should have been persevered in despite the disastrous 
crisis evidently now near at hand is confirmation 
strong as Holy Writ of the sincerity and unselfishness 
of those who labored, and of those who permitted and 
encouraged the work. 

As the war progressed a new sphere of beneficence 
opened to the Church. An unusual number of 
orphans were the fruit of the battle-field, and many 
of these orphans were left entirely destitute. To 
many the Church became a veritable nursing-mother. 
St. John's, Montgomery, was the first parish to under- 
take the systematic care of orphans. Its ' ' Bishop 
Cobbs' Orphans' Home" was in active operation 
throughout the entire conflict, and when the Federal 
troops occupied the city the commanding officer, 
ascertaining that the Home was named after his old 
minister in Cincinnati, detailed a special guard and 
furnished the Home with a month's suppry of pro- 
visions. 

The Bishop having commended this parish's benev- 
olence to the diocese as worthy of imitation, the 
Council of 1864 passed a series of resolutions calling 
on every parish to establish within its boundaries a 
similar institution. This was a rather more sweeping 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 69 

expression of opinion than the Bishop either expected 
or desired; for while he believed that a single large 
institution was less desirable than several small ones 
he perceived, plainly enough, that it was not practi- 
cable, and not desirable, to establish a Church Home 
for Orphans in every parish. Therefore as the evolu- 
tion of the scheme had been left to him, he settled 
upon Mobile and Tuskaloosa as the places where the 
orphans might most easily be collected. These places, 
in addition to Montgomery's existing Home, would 
suffice for the present. 

The attempt at Mobile was ill-timed and unsuc- 
cessful. The expense in Confederate money would 
have been enormous. The city was momentarily 
threatened by the enemy. Men were in no mood to 
hear of the planting of another institution, so strait- 
ened were they to obtain the necessities of existence, 
so doubtful of the morrow. The Churchmen of the 
place, with whom the Bishop held preliminary con- 
sultation, emphatically discountenanced even a tenta- 
tive canvass for subscriptions, and the Bishop reluc- 
tantly retired from the field. * 

More successful was the attempt at Tuskaloosa. 
Here the rector and the vestry were deeply interested, 
heartily seconded the Bishop's efforts, and gave more 
than eight thousand dollars. All the parishes in that 
section of the state were appealed to for help, and all 
responded most liberally — Marion giving over six 
thousand dollars, Faunsdale, Demopolis, and Selma, 
each five thousand dollars, and Greensboro thirteen 

* Convention Address for 1865, p. n. 
12 



I7Q CHURCH IN AL ABAMA. 

thousand. In a short time fifty thousand dollars had 
been secured. With thirty thousand of this a build- 
ing lot and garden were bought and a dwelling and 
school-house built. Ten thousand dollars was set 
aside for investment in real estate with a view to 
endowment, and the remainder was reserved for cur- 
rent expenses. 

During the first few months of its existence only 
eight orphans were received into the Home, but in 
conjunction with the Home a parochial school of fifty 
pupils was conducted. The immediate charge of this 
work was committed to three deaconesses whom the 
Bishop set apart by prayer, but without imposition of 
hands, in Christ Church, Tuskaloosa, on December 
20, 1864. The institution of the order of deaconesses 
proved that Bishop Wilmer's conception of the inher- 
ent powers of the Episcopate was not fettered by the 
shackles of canonical provision. This primitive order, 
with Phoebe of Cenchrea as its best known represent- 
ative, had no place in the polity of the American 
Church. But men of a catholic grasp of mind could 
not wait for a slow-moving General Convention to 
give its imprimatur to an inalienable right and the 
supplying of an immediate necessity. In 1845 Dr. 
Muhlenberg had set apart one woman for the work of 
the diaconate in the parish of the Holy Communion, 
New York City. In 1855 Bishop Whittingham had 
instituted a similar order in St. Andrew's parish, 
Baltimore. Bishop Wilmer had only these staunch 
Churchmen as his predecessors; what they agreed 
upon was sufficient warrant for any ecclesiastical 
departure. 



T 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE BISHOP AND GENERAL ORDERS. 

HE War of the Secession closed with the over- 
turning of the Confederate Government, and 
the subversion of the government of the seceded 
States, the abrogation of their Constitutions, and the 
annihilation of their entire civil polity. Alabama 
was a military province, her Governor was held under 
duress, and Federal soldiery administered justice. 

Under these conditions a very serious ecclesiastical 
difficulty presented itself. The use of the Prayer 
Book prayer for those in civil authority in the Con- 
federate States had of course been discontinued when 
the Confederacy fell. But no other civil authority 
had been substituted for that which had been 
destroyed. Not only so, but it was a widely favored 
suggestion that the temporary occupation of the State 
by soldiers should be permanent, and the State be 
reduced to the slavish condition of a military province. 
For such a condition, nay, for such a prospect, Bishop 
Wilmer felt that neither he nor his clergy nor his 
people could ask long continuance. They could most 
heartily pray God to give the military power ' ' grace 
to execute justice and maintain truth," but they could 
not ask God to grant their commander-in-chief 
"health, prosperity, and long life." For the exist- 
ing state of government, impersonated in the Presi- 
dent, the Bishop frankly stated that he desired the 

171 



172 HISTORY OF THE 



least length of days and the least measure of pros- 
perity consistent with the permissive will of God. * 

Feeling thus, the Bishop, on June 20, 1865, issued 
the following Pastoral Letter to the clergy and laity 
of the diocese : 

' ' The lapse of the Confederate Government does 
not necessarily involve the disorganization of the 
General Council of the Church within the limits of 
that Government. The nationality of a church is a 
matter purely conventional, and of human arrange- 
ment. It is assuredly possible for two church organi- 
zations to exist under one common civil government 
without violating the unity of the Church. There is 
an essential difference between the unity of branches 
of the Church and their union in one legislative body. 
For example, the Church in England is in perfect 
unity with the Church in the United States; but there 
is no legislative union between these Churches. 
Again, and this is a case more nearly in point, the 
Church in Scotland is in unity with the Church in 
England, and yet they exist as distinct organizations 
under a common civil government. Consequently, 
no charge of schism can justly lie against the Church 
in the Southern States in case she should see fit to 
perpetuate herself through a separate organization. 
She does not thereby necessarily depart from the 
unity of the Church in doctrine, discipline, or order. 
Therefore, it may or may not, as circumstances indi- 
cate, be advisable and expedient to dissolve the Gen- 

* The Recent Past, pp. 144 and 145. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 73 

eral Council. This is a question for future ecclesias- 
tical determination. 

"As to the changes in the language of certain 
prayers, which are made necessary by late political 
events, I observe that the lapse of the Confederate 
Government requires, of necessity, the omission of 
the ' Prayer for the President of the Confederate States 
and all in civil authority. ' 

' ' The immediate substitution of another form of 
prayer does not follow of the same necessity, as will 
appear from the following considerations: 

"To pray for all in authority is, unquestionably, a 
duty, but a duty of religious, and not of political 
origin and obligation. The mode of discharging that 
duty must be determined by the proper ecclesiastical 
authority. Consequently, any attempt on the part of 
a civil or military power to dictate to the Church in 
this matter cannot but be regarded as unauthorized 
and intrusive. Certain tests of loyalty have been 
established by authority; and they who faithfully 
conform to these tests have fulfilled the requirements 
of the law, and have a right, in equity and under the 
Constitution of the country, to manage their ecclesias- 
tical affairs according to their own discretion. The 
Church has due regard to established authority, and is 
not to be presumed regardless of her sacred obliga- 
tions. She must be left free and untrammeled in her 
legitimate sphere of action. Any attempt to dictate 
to her can only serve to retard the action which, in 
pursuance of her obligations of God and to her own 



1 74 HISTORY OF THF, 



traditions, she will unquestionably take at the proper 
time and in the proper manner. 

' ' Now the Church in this country has established 
a form of prayer ' for the President and all in civil 
authority. ' The language of that prayer was selected 
with careful reference to the subject of the prayer — 
* All in civil authority; ' and she desires for that au- 
thority prosperity and long continuance. No one can 
reasonably be expected to desire a long continuance 
of military rule. Therefore, the prayer is altogether 
inappropriate and inapplicable to the present condi- 
tion of things, when no civil authority exists in the 
exercise of its functions. Hence, as I remarked in 
the Circular [of May 30] , ' We may yield a true alle- 
giance to, and sincerely pray for grace, wisdom, and 
understanding in behalf of, a government founded 
upon force, while at the same time we could not, in 
good conscience, ask for it continuance, prosperity,' 
etc., etc. 

"When the Civil Authority shall be restored, it 
will be eminently proper for the Church to resume the 
use of that form of prayer which has been established 
by the highest ecclesiastical authorities, and which 
has for so many years constituted a part of her Liturgy. 

' ' You are aware that in times past I have expressed 
a strong desire ' that the regular and ordinary forms 
of public worship should be so entirely Catholic in 
character as to be adapted to all the exigencies of 
time, place, and circumstance,' and that I urged this 
matter upon the attention of our Diocesan Council in 
1864, with a view to action at the approaching General 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 75 

Council. I still entertain the preference which I then 
expressed, but it is not for me, in my individual ca- 
pacity, to introduce into the Liturgy any other form of 
words than that which the Church, in her collective 
and legislative capacity, has already established. 

" My conclusion is, therefore, and my direction 
which I hereby give, that when civil authority shall 
be restored in the State of Alabama, the Clergy shall 
use the form entitled ' A Prayer for the President of 
the United States and all in Civil Authority,' as it 
stands in the Book of Common Prayer. ' ' 

To a man the clergy of the diocese fell into line, and 
for several months the services of the Church were 
peaceably conducted according to the Bishop's direc- 
tions. But soon it became manifest that the military 
government purposed to review the Bishop's action. 
The headquarters of the Department of Alabama being 
at Mobile, and the Church's greatest strength being 
there, Mobile would evidently be the storm center in 
the event of a clash between ecclesiastical authority 
and military. Accordingly the Bishop, who had 
refugeed in Greensboro, went immediately to Mobile 
to be on the scene of action. He had scarcely arrived 
in the city when General Woods sent an officer of his 
staff to know when the Bishop meant to use the prayer 
for the President of the United States. The Bishop 
replied that as the question was put in a tone of au- 
thority he declined to answer it. The officer then 
proposed to talk over the matter ' ' as between man 
and man. " The Bishop acceded to this proposition, 
and the officer asked, "When do you think you 



176 HISTORY OF THE 



will use the Prayer Book prayer for the President?" 
" When you all get away from here," was the reply 
of the Bishop; and he then asked the officer if with 
conditions reversed and the Confederate heel on the 
neck of the Union he could sincerely ask for life, 
health, and prosperity, to the Confederate General ? 
The officer very excitedly exclaimed that he would 
be — something very dreadful — if he would. " Well," 
returned the Bishop, " I am not disposed to use your 
phraseology; but, if I do that thing that you come to 
order me to do, — address the Almighty with my lips, 
when my heart is not in my prayer, — I run great 
danger of meeting the doom that you have hypothetic- 
ally invoked upon your own head. ' ' 

The officer then returned to General Woods. A few 
days later— September 20, 1865, exactly three months 
after the appearance of the Bishop's Pastoral — the 
following remarkable document was promulgated from 
military headquarters at Mobile, as " General Orders, 
No. 38." It is so unique in its bold attempt to over- 
turn constitutional religious freedom and to prescribe 
forms of public worship, that it deserves to be recorded 
in full:* 

* The author is indebted to Mr. Richard Hines, of Mobile, 
for the following exact transcript of the Order, as it appeared 
in The Daily Register the following morning, September 21. 



church in alabama. 1 77 

1 ' Headquarters Department 1 
" of Alabama, > 

"Mobile, Ala., Sept. 20, 1865. J 

"General Orders, No. 38. 

' ' The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United 
States has established a form of prayer to be used for 
' the President of the United States and all in Civil 
Authority.' During the continuance of the late 
wicked and groundless rebellion the prayer was 
changed to one for the President of the Confederate 
States, and, so altered, was used in the Protestant 
Episcopal Churches of the Diocese of Alabama. 

1 ' Since the ' lapse ' of the Confederate Government 
and the restoration of the authority of the United 
States over the late rebellious States the prayer for 
the President has been altogether omitted in the 
Episcopal Churches of Alabama. 

' ' This omission was recommended by the Right 
Rev. Richard Wilmer, Bishop of Alabama, in a letter 
to the clergy and laity, dated June 20, 1865. The 
only reason given by. Bishop Wilmer for the omission 
of the prayer, which, to use his own language, ' was 
established by the highest ecclesiastical authorities, 
and has for many years constituted a part of the 
Liturgy of the Church,' is stated by him in the fol- 
lowing words: 

" ' Now, the Church in this country has established 
a form of prayer for the President and all in civil 
authority. The language of the prayer was selected 
with careful reference to the subject of the prayer — 
'All in Civil Authority' ; and she desires for that 



178 HISTORY OF THE 



authority prosperity and long continuance. No one 
can reasonably be expected to desire a long con- 
tinuance of military rule. Therefore, the prayer is 
altogether inappropriate and inapplicable to the pres- 
ent condition of things, when no civil authority exists 
in the exercise of its functions. Hence, as I remarked 
in the Circular, ' we may }deld a true allegiance to, 
and sincerely pray for grace, wisdom, and under- 
standing in behalf of, a government founded upon 
force, while at the same time we could not in good 
conscience ask for it continuance, prosperity,' etc., 
etc. 

' ' It will be observed from this extract — ist, That 
the Bishop, because he cannot pray for the continu- 
ance of ' military rule,' therefore declines to pray for 
those in authority. 2nd, He declares the prayer 
inappropriate and inapplicable, because no civil 
authority [exists] in the exercise of its functions. 

"On the 20th of June, the date of his letter, there 
was a President of the United States, a Cabinet, 
Judges of the Supreme Courts, and thousands of other 
civil officers of the United States, all in the exercise 
of their functions. It was for them specially that this 
form of prayer was established, yet the Bishop can- 
not among all these find any subject worthy of his 
prayers. Since the publication of this letter, a Civil 
Governor has been appointed for the State of Ala- 
bama, and in every county Judges and Sheriffs have 
been appointed, and all these are, and for weeks have 
been, in the exercise of their functions; yet the prayer 
has not been restored. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 79 

1 ' The prayer which the Bishop advised to be 
omitted is not a prayer for the continuance of military 
rule, or the continuance of any particular form of 
government, or any particular person in power. It is 
simply a prayer for the temporal and spiritual weal of 
the persons in whose benefit it is offered. It is a 
prayer to the High and Mighty Ruler of the Universe 
that He would with his power behold and bless the 
President of the United States and all others in 
authority — that he would replenish them with the 
grace of His Holy Spirit that they may always incline 
to His will and walk in His ways; that He would 
endow them plenteously with heavenly gifts, grant 
them in health and prosperity long to live, and finally 
after this life to attain everlasting joy and felicity. It 
is a prayer at once applicable and appropriate, and 
which any heart, not filled with hatred, malice, and 
all uncharitableness, could conscientiously offer. 

" The advice of the Bishop to omit this prayer, and 
its omission by the clergy, is not only a violation of 
the canons of the Church, but shows a factious and 
disloyal spirit, and is a marked insult to every loyal 
citizen within the Department. Such men are unsafe 
public teachers, and not to be trusted in places of 
power and influence over public opinion. 

" It is therefore ordered, pursuant to the directions 
of Major General Thomas, commanding the military 
division of Tennessee, that said Richard Wilmer, 
Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the 
Diocese of Alabama, and the Protestant Episcopal 
clergy of said diocese be, and they are hereb}^ for- 



l8o HISTORY OF THK 



bidden, to preach or perform divine service, and that 
their places of worship be closed, until such time as 
said Bishop and clergy show a sincere return to their 
allegiance to the Government of the United States, 
and give evidence of a loyal and patriotic spirit by 
offering to resume the use of the prayer for the Presi- 
dent of the United States and all in civil authority, 
and by taking the amnesty oath prescribed by the 
President. 

1 ' This prohibition shall continue in each individual 
case until special application is made through the 
military channels to these headquarters for permis- 
sion to preach and perform divine service, and until 
such application is approved at these or superior 
headquarters. 

1 ' District commanders are required to see that this 
order is carried into effect. 

" By order of Major General Chas. R. Woods. 

"Frkd. H. Wilson, A. A. G." 

Immediately upon the publication of these orders, 
which are sufficient in themselves to prove that the 
civil power had not been restored, save in empty form, 
Bishop Wilmer inquired of General Woods whether it 
was his intention to use military force in case the 
clergy of the diocese should disregard their suspension 
by the secular arm. This the Bishop did in order to 
bring out unmistakably the intent of the orders and 
to make it clear that he and his clergy would yield 
not to usurped authority but to force. It did not ap- 
pear seemly that an issue of force should be made at 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. l8l 

the very Altar of God, and the Bishop insisted in his 
note of inquiry that the declaration of intention to 
use military force would be regarded by him as equiva- 
lent to a forcible ejection from the precincts of the 
Sanctuary. 

General Woods' reply was curt: He would if neces- 
sary use military force in closing the churches, should 
his order be disobeyed. Accordingly the Bishop ad- 
vised that until the order was revoked or military force 
was withdrawn no attempt to worship in public should 
be made. At the same time he reminded the Church- 
men of Alabama that communication with God's 
mercy-seat could not be obstructed by any created 
powers Individual prayer could be made. Two or 
three could be profitably gathered together in Christ's 
name. Where soldiers were stationed the churches 
were closed. Where no soldiers were stationed the 
churches were opened and the usual services main- 
tained. Under the most stringent restrictions private 
houses made favorable chapels, and personal freedom 
allowed the Bishop to confirm and to issue pastorals; 
much to the indignation of the general who had sus- 
pended him from the exercise of his functions, and 
who threatened imprisonment and possible death, but 
dared not place him under arrest for an offence of 
which no law of the country took cognizance. 

Meanwhile the Bishop was not content with this 
condition of affairs, which hampered the Church so 
greatly. His first attempt was to secure from the 
General Convention of the Church in the United 
States, of which, on its own theory, the diocese of 



1 82 HISTORY OF THE 



Alabama was a component part, a solemn protest 
against secular interference with ecclesiastical pro- 
cedure. He hoped that the importance of the prin- 
ciple involved might unite in public expression those 
who differed as to his application of the principle. 
But the hope was vain. Political feeling was too 
high for the members of the Convention then sitting 
in Philadelphia to view the Bishop's action with un- 
prejudiced eye, and the only step taken was by the 
House of Bishops, which ineffectually sent a single 
Bishop to Washington to procure if possible a revo- 
cation of the military interdict. 

The Bishop's next step was to appeal to the Provi- 
visional Governor of the State — Lewis B. Parsons. 
General Orders No. 38 had stated that there was a 
civil Governor, and the Bishop determined to test him 
for authority. In October he called on the Governor 
to show the truth of his assertion that the military 
authority was subservient and subordinate to the civil 
authority. The Governor was unable to substantiate 
his claim, but in a very courteous note he promised to 
lay the whole affair before President Andrew Johnson. 
This note was shortly followed by another stating that 
the President declined to consider the matter. 

On November 27 the Bishop himself made direct 
appeal to the President, calling it to his attention 
that the Constitution, the supreme law, prohibits Con- 
gress from interfering with religious worship and that 
Congress cannot allow her military arm to do what 
the Constitution expressly forbids to her civil arm ; 
representing that he found himself, not having been 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 83 

accused as a lawbreaker, subjected to the operation of 
pains and penalties, and assailed with ignominious 
epithets; affirming that even if he were guilty of vio- 
lating the law of his own Church (though he was not, 
for he was not a member of the ecclesiastical organiza- 
tion mentioned in General Orders) the secular power 
was not competent to construe and enforce her rubrics 
and canons; and demanding in equity and constitu- 
tional law that the unauthoritative General Orders 
No. 38 be rescinded. After hanging fire some time 
the appeal was successful. Much against his will, 
and with much bitterness of soul and pen, General 
Woods' superior, Thomas, withdrew the offensive 
General Orders, at the same time using his official 
position as a cloak for the deepest maliciousness. In 
tone the last Order was even more violent, in its con- 
scious impotence, than the first : 

' ' Headquarters 1 

"Military Division of the Tennessee, > 
11 Nashville, Tenn. , Dec. 22, 1865. J 

"General Orders, No. 40. 

1 ' Armed resistance to the authority of the United 
States having been put down, the President, on the 
29th of May last, issued his Proclamation of Amnesty, 
declaring that armed resistance having ceased in all 
quarters, he invited those lately in rebellion to recon- 
struct and restore civil authority, thus proclaiming 
the magnanimity of our Government towards all, no 
matter how criminal or how deserving of punishment. 

1 ' Alarmed at this imminent and impending peril to 



1 84 HISTORY OF THE 



the cause in which he had embarked with all his 
heart and mind, and desiring to check, if possible, the 
spread of popular approbation and grateful apprecia- 
tion of the magnanimous policy of the President in 
his efforts to bring the people of the United States 
back to their former friendly and national relations 
one with another, an individual, styling himself Bishop 
of Alabama, forgetting his mission to preach peace on 
earth and good will towards man, and being animated 
with the same spirit which through temptation be- 
guiled the mother of men to the commission of the 
first sin — thereby entailing eternal toil and trouble on 
earth — issued, from behind the shield of his office, his 
manifesto of the 20th of June last to the clergy of the 
Episcopal Church of Alabama, directing them to omit 
the usual and customary prayer for the President of 
the United States and all others in authority, until 
the troops of the United States had been removed 
from the limits of Alabama; cunningly justifying this 
treasonable course, by plausibly presenting to the 
minds of the people that, civil authority not yet having 
been restored in Alabama, there was no occasion for 
the use of said prayer, as such prayer was intended 
for the civil authority alone, and as the military 
w T as the only authority in Alabama it was manifestly 
improper to pra} r for the continuance of military rule. 
" This man, in his position of a teacher of religion, 
charity, and good fellowship with his brothers, whose 
paramount duty as such should have been character- 
ized by frankness and freedom from all cunning, thus 
took advantage of the sanctity of his position to mis- 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 85 

lead the minds of those who naturally regarded him as 
a teacher in whom they could trust, and attempted to 
lead them back into the labyrinths of treason. 

' ' For this covert and cunning act he was deprived 
of the privileges of citizenship, in so far as the right 
to officiate as a minister of the Gospel, because it was 
evident he could not be trusted to officiate and confine 
his teachings to matters of religion alone — in fact, that 
religious matters were but a secondary consideration 
in his mind, he having taken an early opportunity to 
subvert the Church to the justification and dissemina- 
tion of his treasonable sentiments. 

"As it is, however, manifest that so far from enter- 
taining the same political views as Bishop Wilmer 
the people of Alabama are honestly endeavoring to 
restore the civil authority in that state, in conformity 
with the requirements of the Constitution of the United 
States, and to repudiate their acts of hostility during 
the past four years, and have accepted with a loyal 
and becoming spirit the magnanimous terms offered 
them by the President; therefore, the restrictions 
heretofore imposed upon the Episcopal clergy of Ala- 
bama are removed, and Bishop Wilmer is left to that 
remorse of conscience consequent to the exposure and 
failure of the diabolical schemes of designing and 
corrupt minds. 

" By command of Major-General Thomas, 

"Wm. D. Whipple, 
"Assistant Adjutant-General." 

This order was promulgated from Mobile, by Gen- 
— 13 



1 86 HISTORY OF THE 



eral Woods, on January 10, 1866, and on January 13, 
civil authority then having been restored, Bishop 
Wilmer issued a final pastoral, calling on the clergy 
and laity to use the prayer for the President of the 
United States. 

This pastoral was not a retreat from his former 
position. Neither was it a compromise. The Bishop's 
position was never changed. On occasion of the 
closing of the churches he had written: " Should the 
General Council, of which the Diocese of Alabama is 
a component part, order any prayer in place of that 
which has ceased of necessity, then, from that time 
forth, the ordering of the Council would be decisive 
as the supreme law of the churches constituting said 
Council." The General Council had provided for 
such a prayer while the Alabama churches were 
closed, and its provision was to have force of law in 
any diocese when approved by its Bishop or its Dio- 
cesan Council. On account of military dictation the 
Bishop withheld his approval, and gave it only when 
secular pressure was withdrawn. 

The result of secular interference was to delay the 
use in Alabama of the Prayer for the President of the 
United States just two months. What the Church 
refused to do of compulsion she did of her own free 
will. Some whose loyalty to the Union blinded them 
to the presence of a matter of principle, profound and 
far-reaching, criticized Bishop Wilmer severely for 
his course. But thirty years later, when time gave 
sufficient perspective, and the blindness of prejudice 
had largely disappeared, no one disputed the con- 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 87 

elusion of the Historiographer of the American 
Church, the Rt. Rev. William Stevens Perry, Bishop 
of Iowa : ' ' This action of the Bishop established for 
all time to come, in this land at least, the principle 
that in spiritualities the Church's rule is supreme." 



CHAPTER V. 

THE BISHOP AND THE GENERAI, CONVENTION. 

THE Church in the United States was not consulted 
either in Bishop Wilmer's election or in his 
consecration. And for this reason: The seceded states 
formed another nation, and in that nation was erected 
a national Church, declaring that it held, as regarded 
intercommunion and legislative independence, the 
same relationship to the Church in the United States 
that that Church held to the Church of England. It 
had its own presiding Bishop, Meade of Virginia, and 
its own supreme legislative body, the General Council. 
Its constitution and canons were but slightly altered 
from those in force in the United States. A majority 
of the Bishops and a majority of the Standing Com- 
mittees must consent to the election of a Bishop before 
his consecration could occur. In Bishop Wilmer's 
case, the only one that arose within the period of 
secession, this consent was given and the Bishop was 
duly consecrated. 

When this action became known in the United 
States it created much indignation and a considerable 
amount of intemperate writing. The patent fact was 
ignored that, though supporting itself against outside 
aggressions by force of arms, an autonomous, regu- 
larly constituted, civil government existed, known as 
the Confederate States, and that the ancient custom 

of legislative independence for branches of the Church 

188 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 89 

in separate countries was but followed by the Church 
in the Confederate States. In diocesan journals, pas- 
toral letters, and resolutions found in the Journal of 
the General Convention, the words "rebels," "trai- 
tors," "schismatics," and the like, were not infre- 
quently used by the Church's adopted but unassimi- 
lated sons. In the General Convention of 1862 it was 
proposed that Bishop Wilmer's jurisdiction be pro- 
claimed null and void; but the resolution was not 
adopted. 

With the lapse of the Confederacy it became neces- 
sary for the Southern dioceses to determine upon a 
course of procedure. Very pronounced differences of 
opinion arose. Some claimed that the absorption of 
the Confederacy into the Union carried with it, and 
without formal action, the dissolution of the General 
Council and the attachment of the Southern diocese 
to the General Convention. It was urged by these 
that the Bishops and deputies from the various dioceses 
should take their seats in the General Convention of 
1865 as if nothing had occurred since the harmonious 
Convention which had met in Richmond in 1859; 
that nothing unpleasant would occur; and that the 
Convention had no other wish or expectation, as 
witness the fact that even in 1862 the roll-call was 
never curtailed, but always began, in a vote by orders, 
with Alabama, and contained in alphabetical order the 
name of every seceded state. Among the most pro- 
nounced advocates of this view were Bishops Atkinson 
of North Carolina and Lay of Arkansas, who pro- 



190 HISTORY OF THE 



ceeded to Philadelphia and took their seats in the 
House of Bishops. 

But the majority of Southern Bishops and dioceses, 
led by Bishops Elliott, Green, and Wilmer, contended 
that this view was entirely Brastian and un-Catholic; 
that no organization of associated dioceses that bases 
itself on geographical and national boundaries can 
urge any higher claim than mutual agreement, or con- 
sideration of high expediency; and that, in the present 
instance, expediency was a matter to be demonstrated. 
One party in the Church of the General Convention 
proposed ' ' to keep the Southern Churchmen for a 
while in the cold," and " to put the rebels upon stools 
of repentance." Not knowing the strength of this 
party, but well aware that, generally, fanaticism grows 
fast in the hour of triumph, having no data on which 
to estimate the concessions and admissions that would 
possibly be required but having no concessions and no 
admissions to make, most of the Bishops and their 
dioceses determined to maintain the organization of 
the General Council until the temper of the General 
Convention should make clear their future course. 

Many were brought to such decision by the publica- 
tion about this time of some correspondence between 
John Henry Hopkins, Presiding Bishop and Bishop of 
Vermont, and Bishop Wilmer. Bishop Hopkins had 
issued a circular letter to the Southern Bishops, plead- 
ing with them not to prolong their separate legislative 
organization, which, being wilful and needless, was 
schismatical; he had pointed out that in any case it 
was but ' ' a matter of time ' ' when such separation 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 191 

must disappear, and urged that what must be done, at 
any rate, sooner or later, were better done at once. 

Bishop Wilmer's response was couched in terms of 
stern manliness. He asserted that in some cases the 
time of action is everything. ' ' There is nothing ille- 
gal," he said, " in a second marriage, and it is gener- 
ally a ' mere question of time ' with men when they 
shall marry again; but 

' The funeral baked-meats 

Do coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.' " 

It was unnatural to suppose that Southern grief 
could entirely and immediately turn from the past and 
sing Te Deums with the victorious peoples. It must 
have time. Moreover there was this insuperable 
objection: Every single man that represented the 
Southern dioceses in the General Convention, having 
obtained such judicial or military rank or such an 
amount of property as excluded him from the general 
amnesty, was still, according to the President's proc- 
lamation, "an unpardoned rebel and traitor; " and it 
was almost certain that the men who called these pros- 
pective deputies rebels and traitors would have the 
courage of their convictions, and, on the floor of the 
House of Deputies, question the propriety of allowing 
rebels and traitors to participate in the deliberations of 
a loyal Church. 

Influenced by these and similar considerations, the 
Southern Bishops and dioceses held aloof from the 
General Convention. Bishops Atkinson and Lay 
alone resumed their former places in the House of 
Bishops; but they did not take their seats uncondi- 



192 HISTORY OF THE 



tionally. They made the recognition of Bishop Wil- 
mer as Diocesan of Alabama a condition precedent. 
This the entire College of Confederate Bishops had 
determined upon as their own course, however favor- 
able the General Convention should be in other 
respects. They came to this determination despite 
Bishop Wilmer's express statement that rather than 
allow his case to constitute a barrier to general pacifica- 
tion he would resign. 

After hearing the representations of the two South- 
ern Bishops the House of Bishops assented to the 
jurisdiction of the Bishop of Alabama upon two con- 
ditions: ist, That he should furnish evidence of his 
consecration; and, 2nd, That he should make declara- 
tion of conformity to the Constitution and Canons of 
the Church in the United States. These conditions 
were reasonable, and as they were precisely the terms 
on which any foreign Bishop would be admitted to 
legislative authority in the Church in the United 
States, the most ardent Diocesan-Rights man could 
not take exception to them. 

It was more than two months before this action was 
officially communicated to the Bishop of Alabama. 
Meanwhile the General Council of the Southern dio- 
ceses had met in Augusta, Georgia, in November. 
The spirit of charity which had prevailed in the Gen- 
eral Convention the preceding month commended 
itself to the heart of all present. Again did the 
genial warmth of the sun do what the cold Northern 
blasts could never have done, and the dissolution of 
the General Council was soon accomplished. Abso- 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 93 

lute freedom of action and liberty to withdraw from 
the Conciliar compact was accorded every diocese. 
Only one obstacle prevented the prompt return of 
Alabama to legislative union with the general Church, 
and that was the military duress described in the last 
chapter. But this having ended, the Bishop convoked 
a special diocesan Council in Montgomery, on Jan- 
uary 17, 1866, laid before it the whole matter, received 
its unstinted " approbation, admiration, and thanks for 
the firm, dignified, and Christian manner in which he 
had maintained the independence and dignity of the 
Church in this diocese;" and then, by formal resolu- 
tion, the Church in Alabama resumed its former rela- 
tion to the national Church. 

Immediately after the adjournment of this special 
Council Bishop Wilmer set out for New T York, and on 
January 31, 1866, in Trinity Chapel, of that city, 
made the prescribed Declaration of Conformity, and 
united with the Presiding Bishop and the other 
Bishops and clergy present in the celebration of the 
Holy Communion. 

" Thus happily, as I think," said the Bishop to the 
diocesan Convention of 1866, "the Church in Ala- 
bama has been able, through God's grace and kind 
providence, to do her full duty, and to maintain her 
dignity and propriety; and looking alone to the weal 
of the whole body of Christ, to pursue a steady and 
consistent course. Henceforward, guided by the 
same Spirit which has thus far led us and governed 
all our deliberations, let us more than ever strive for 



194 CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 

those things which concern the glory of God and the 
good of His Church. 

' ' We are able to show to the world that we are not 
a sect, much less a sectional sect; that the catholic 
spirit of the Southern dioceses has met with a like 
response in the catholic spirit of the Northern dio- 
ceses — "deep calling unto deep" — giving us con- 
fidence that henceforth, as ever before, no political 
differences shall prevail to break the bonds of catholic 
unity and of Heaven-born charity. ' ' 



CHAPTER VI. 

DECAY OF THE NEGRO WORK. 

THROUGHOUT the civil war the relationship of 
master and slave had remained unchanged. The 
master realized that the obligations of ownership were 
not rendered less sacred by the inoperative proclama- 
tion of a foreign power. The slave was content to 
serve him to whom he had always confidently looked 
for food and raiment, for tobacco and snuff, and for 
that personal consideration which was lacking in few 
slave-holders and which seldom found an unresponsive 
object. 

When the impatience of men brought about by 
revolution that abolition which God was bringing 
about by the slower but surer process of evolution, and 
when they whose natures were fit only for serfdom 
were by one violent effort hurled into an environment 
for which man had made no due preparation, this 
state of mutual confidence was changed, as by hideous 
enchantment, into a state of reciprocal distrust. With 
the ballot, the white badge of freedom, in their hand, 
the newly enfranchised felt that they were as gods. 
They easily fell a political prey to those swarming 
demagogues and carpet-baggers who unscrupulously 
exalted the Negro that they themselves might use him 
as a stepping-stone. With centuries of ignorance, and 
bondage, and slow development behind them, and 
without any exercise in intelligent choice and self- 
i95 



196 HISTORY OF THB 



determination, they were unable to discriminate be- 
tween freedom and anarchy. With minds excessively 
emotional, and without discipline by the in-forming 
Spirit of God as to the proper objects and limitations 
of emotion, they confounded the restraints of God with 
the restraints of man. ' ' Six days shalt thou labor ' ' 
was an obsolete command, now that no visible law 
enforced it; and since they were free to idle when they 
wished, the ex-slaves wandered from place to place as 
fancy dictated, filled with restless anxiety to demon- 
strate their freedom by exercising it to the utmost 
limit. They looked upon their former owners with 
a suspicion that fast grew into settled antagonism. 
Labor became thoroughly demoralized, and it seemed 
that the devastation of civil war would shortly be sur- 
passed by the tidal-wave of race conflict. The wealth 
of the South was in land, and the value of the land 
depended on its yearly harvests. With fewer laborers 
came reduced acreage, poorer cultivation, smaller crops; 
and with this the further impoverishment of land- 
owners. This was succeeded in constantly increasing 
ratio by the removal of the white people to the towns 
and the surrender of the country to the blacks. 

This segregation of the races, attended with the 
numerical predominance of the blacks over those 
whites that remained on the old homesteads, caused 
among the whites increased, and often baseless, fear 
of Negro uprisings, and led to the formation, for com- 
mon protection, of the Ku Klux Klan, whose purpose 
was to create and perpetuate such terrorism among the 
Negroes as to nip in the bud any incipient lawlessness, 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 97 

and to kill out the insolent spirit and habits that 
were springing up so luxuriantly under the fructifying 
presence of Northern troops. 

The political alliance of the Negroes with the aliens, 
and the apparently necessitated retaliation of the 
whites, tended to a further disseverance of interests 
that should have been common. In nine years the 
Legislature of Alabama, elected by Negroes and com- 
posed in large part of Negroes and carpet-baggers, had 
increased the State debt from less than six millions of 
dollars to more than thirty- eight millions. Evidently 
the whites must rule or be ruined. To rule they must 
as a phalanx set themselves in opposition, determined, 
aggressive, merciless, to the forces of disintegration. 
And this relationship must be maintained in every 
county, township, neighborhood, house, and heart, 
till the common salvation of whites and blacks alike 
was secured. 

Such were the conditions that confronted the Church 
in Alabama after the war. Under the old regime it 
had been possible to give the slaves frequent religious 
ministrations, and many a slave-holder had gladly 
made provision for their spiritual and moral instruc- 
tion. But now the ex-slaves would take neither their 
politics nor their religion from their former owners. 
Northern politicians and renegade Alabamians ini- 
tiated them into the mysteries of political economy. 
Preachers of their own color made broad for them the 
strait and narrow way. Every attempt made by the 
clergy that had formerly visited them, preached to 
them, and administered to them the Sacraments, was 



198 HISTORY OF THE 



now met with that disingenuousness which has ever 
characterized the response of the freedman to the ap- 
proaches of the white. 

The few faithful Negroes that clung to the teach- 
ings and the communion of the Church in preference 
to hearing the ranting ululation of sensual enthusiasts 
were ostracized by their race, and suffered all the 
social trials that went with mediaeval excommunica- 
tion. They were regarded as heathen and traitors. 
In health they had no communication with their own 
people. In sickness they received no succor from 
their own kinsfolk. In death hirelings of their own 
race performed the offices that affection refused. 
Some endured to the end a martyrdom as real as that 
of the early Christians. But most wearied after a 
time, and went with their people. 

The Church in Alabama yielded only to necessity 
in abandoning for a time her efforts to evangelize the 
Negro. There were lips to speak so long as there 
were ears to hear, and long after there were hearts to 
feel. It must be confessed that the laity did not 
evince any wild enthusiasm. To any reasonable dis- 
tance they would follow the rector's lead, but they 
themselves would not lead. When, in 1866, it was 
proposed that the Convention should, in its corporate 
capacity, adopt some authoritative plan for the further- 
ance of Christian work among the Negroes, the laity 
flatly, though in parliamentary language, refused to 
have part or parcel in the matter as a diocesan move- 
ment. They said that they would ' ' confide all 
details " to their spiritual pastors and governors, the 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 1 99 

Bishop and the clergy, believing that under their 
wise counsel the guiding principles of the Bible and 
the ordinary forms and appointments of the Church 
sufficed to meet all the exigencies of the case. 

The Bishop and the clergy did what they could do 
to stem the tide, but that was little. The General 
Convention attempted to assist the Southern Bishops, 
before they asked for assistance, by establishing the 
"Freedmen's Commission," but the Commission 
rendered assistance impossible by suggesting, at the 
outset, that the Church's work among the Negroes 
pass from the Bishops' jurisdiction and be entrusted to 
other agencies. This schism-breeding proposition 
was promptly and forcibly rejected by Bishop Wil- 
mer, who, magnifying his office and purposing that 
it should not be belittled by others, took the ground 
that the Bishop of a diocese is charged with the 
selection of instrumentalities, and that these, if they 
are to work properly, must work under his super- 
vision; that class legislation is repugnant to the mind 
of Christ, in whom is neither bond nor free; and that 
the Churchmen of Alabama were debtors to the free 
as to the bond — not less; but also not more. Finally, 
the Bishop said, he was willing to accept subordinate 
help, but not co-ordinate.* Assistance on such terms 
was not forthcoming, and the diocese was left to its 
own devices. 

As early as 1867 the many congregations of Negroes 
had dwindled to two — the Church of the Good Shep- 
herd, Mobile, and Faunsdale Chapel, on the planta- 

* Journal of 51st Annual Convention, page 36. 



200 HISTORY OF THE 



tion of the Rev. William A. Stickney, in Marengo 
county. Occasionally a solitary Negro communicant 
was found in white congregations, but the only aggres- 
sive work attempted, except in the two congregations 
mentioned above, was among the children. Even 
this did not long survive. In St. John's parish, 
Montgomery, Dr. H. M. Smead conducted a Sunda}- 
school of six white teachers and one hundred and 
twenty Negro pupils; but, in face of the parental and 
social influences that were moulding the pupils' 
character all through the week, the difficulties and 
discouragements were too man}', and the fruits of an 
hour's influence and teaching once a week were too 
few and insignificant, to warrant a continuance of the 
attempt. When, in addition to these discourage- 
ments, intermeddling Negro politicians went about 
proclaiming that the school was simply a hot bed of 
horrible Democratic sedition, the project was doomed. 
After two years of faithful labor the entire corps of 
workers retired from the field. 

In the " Canebrake " of Hale, Perry, Dallas, and 
Marengo counties, the Rev. William A. Stickney 
fought a losing fight, single-handed, for nearly twenty 
3 r ears. Mr. Stickney was a large land-owner; it was 
his property that gave the name to the present town 
of Faunsdale. On his plantation he had built, at a 
cost of twenty-five hundred dollars, a neat chapel for 
the use of those who, at first his slaves, were now his 
tenants. His return to the practice of the earfy Church 
in imposing penance on evil-doers appealed to the 
Negroes' sense of fitness, and did not diminish his 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 201 

popularity among the congregations that he served, 
and they requested him to preach to them regularly 
on several plantations. For a short while their attend- 
ance was good, especially on week-days when field- 
labor was suspended and the wages of attendants at 
chapel ran on. Upon his own plantation, when the 
congregations began to decrease Mr. Stickney refused 
to renew the lease of his tenants except with the stipu- 
lation that they should regularly attend public services 
in the chapel. With the Negroes it was one thing to 
make this contract, and another to keep it. With 
those who kept the contract it was one thing to come 
and another to worship. Very soon the ministerial 
proprietor of the chapel ceased the attempt to make 
the Negroes worship the Almighty by contract. 

But this failure did not quench his ardor. With 
the help of the women of his family he began a day- 
school for the children that were too young to work 
in the fields. Only a two-hours' session was held, 
and the instruction was entirely oral and sugar-coated. 
The idea on which the school was founded was that 
the work of forming Christian character must begin 
very near the cradle and persist through life. If it 
seemed hopeless to change those whose characters 
had crystallized, it was possible to develop unformed, 
plastic characters along right lines. At least, this 
was the Stickneys' hope. The two great obstacles to 
its realization, heredity and environment, were not 
sufficiently considered. Heredity gave an inborn pre- 
disposition to sensuality, a phro?iema sarkos, above 
that of mankind at large; for the sense of morality is 

14 



202 HISTORY OF THE 



a growth that their ancestry had not cultivated, the 
ape and the tiger had not been worked out, and their 
inborn inclination found favorable atmosphere and 
soil in the home life. The vices of the Negroes were 
grosser than those of the whites; their will-power was 
weaker; their consciousness of sin could not, appa- 
rently, be germinated. Having little training of the 
spirit and less of the mind they were debarred from 
intellectual enjoyments and spiritual restraints. De- 
velopment of mind and soul did not keep pace with 
development of body; hence they easily and almost 
inevitably fell victims to first temptations. At the 
present day many have reached a high plane of ethics, 
and in every class an imperfect and arbitrary morality 
is evident, but in those days the vast majority had no 
morality at all. They who from afar spun their theo- 
ries and idealized their brother-in-black believed that 
Southern men and women were grossly calumniating 
their old slaves. But they who came down and 
worked in the midst of them, and went in and out 
among them, found that enchantment was inseparable 
from distance. 

Mr. Stickney served the Negro, in face of all these 
obstacles, long, faithfully, and intelligently; but his 
zeal could neither blind him to facts nor prevent him 
from telling what he saw. In 1 869 he wrote : ' ' Viewed 
from the Christian standpoint, I can say nothing of 
this race, within my sphere of observation, to en- 
courage you as to their future. They have not 
abandoned the spasmodic, emotional religion taught 
them by sectarian religionists. ' Professing ' is yet 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 203 

their favorite and perhaps only religion, with an utter 
disregard for the morality enjoined in the Decalogue. 
It is dismal to think of their licentious depravity who 
occupy the head and front ranks in this illusory sys- 
tem. ' ' A year later he said : ' ' Results in this field 
have not cheered my heart with the hope of elevating 
the people in pure or Christian morality." A few 
years later he said : "Perseverance is the rule adhered 
to amid prospects anything but hopeful. Indications 
pointing to the growth of morality — especially of 
truth, integrity, and chastity — do not cheer my toils 
for and with this people. ' ' From year to year a few 
were confirmed, and the nominal communicants at 
Faunsdale chapel long numbered about twenty-five; 
but the most of these were not actual communicants, 
and not a few that purposed to communicate were 
repelled from the Holy Table. 

In 1883 the final full report of this work showed its 
virtual disintegration : ' ' I am at a loss to know what 
to do in this field of labor. For the past twenty years 
I have been practically familiar with various of the ex- 
periments recommended on paper in different quarters 
of the Church. My strength and deepest concern 
have been expended on them. With the beautiful 
ecclesiological structure on the plantation in days of 
slavery, I have had, and used, the opportunity of 
dealing with it as a regular parish — baptizing and 
instructing the children, celebrating the Holy Com- 
munion, visiting the sick as physician to both soul 
and body, solemnizing marriage, and burying the 
dead. In settling their quarrels, counselling them 



204 HISTORY OF THE 



through difficulties, and in all my dealings, the staple 
of my conversation has been their responsibility and 
allegiance to their Creator as taught by our Redeemer. 
I have found it easy to bring forward classes to Con- 
firmation. The picture is attractive to them. Out- 
wardness ever has a charm for them, and the more of 
it, the greater their avidity to participate in it. But 
emptiness, sham, hypocrisy, are about all I have seen 
come of it. I am paralyzed in any and every attempt 
to induce this race of people to realize that God requires 
the keeping of His commandments as a condition of 
pleasing Him. They will flock to the Holy Com- 
munion besotted in bestial depravity, unless I can find 
it out and repel them. It distresses me to invite them 
to a pure participation of that Holy Sacrifice. I have 
hence reported but one celebration the whole past 
year, and I cannot actually frame a list of communi- 
cants. This is not the report of a missionary toiling 
among the heathen on Afric's shores. But it is the 
exhibit of Americanized Africans, that have been 
instructed from childhood in the Catechism on this 
plantation. I have in my view successive crops of 
the young — children's children — who have thus been 
tried, and I fail to see one step gained for or by them 
in purity of life and common morality."* 

Similar discouragement and disintegration attended 
the efforts of the Rev. Dr. Massey in Mobile. The 
congregation of the chapel of the Good Shepherd 
gradually melted away and sought the companionship 

* Journals of Conventions, Rev. Wm. A. Stickney's reports, 
passim. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 205 

of their own people. From fifty communicants the 
number dwindled to nine. The separate organization 
was dissolved, the building was sold for a few hundred 
dollars, and the handful of communicants became 
members of Trinity parish. 

So among the children of Montgomery, the farm- 
hands of the Canebrake, and the literate of Mobile, 
the Church's attempts failed utterly and completely, 
and in 1882 not one of the old organized Negro con- 
gregations was to be found in the Diocese of Alabama. 



CHAPTER VII. 

ETHIOPIA'S UPUFTED HANDS. 

IN utter ignorance of the unparalleled conditions 
that confronted the Church and the Churchmen of 
the unreconstructed South, many Northern journals 
gave liberal and aggressive advice to the Southern 
bishops and clergy. When their nostrums and pan- 
aceas were gently put aside, they quickly abandoned 
counsel and began to hurl epithets. Inertness and 
indifference to Negro evangelization were openfy 
charged against the bishops. The Negro was sup- 
posed to be looking up hungrily to the shepherds, and 
the shepherds were withholding food; to be swarm- 
ing about the Church doors eager to enter, and the 
bishops w T ere waving off the multitudes. 

The true condition was just the reverse. The 
Negro w r as waving off the bishop. Every proffer of 
spiritual food was daintily examined and rejected. 
Every attempt to benefit individuals contributed to a 
spirit of self-assertion that misconstrued every effort. 
And when the political influences playing upon them 
are remembered it is not surprising that they looked 
upon these approaches of their old masters as so many 
attempts to conciliate their most worthy reserve. 

But, however natural the Negro's behavior, it 
necessitated cessation of effort on the part of his 
would-be benefactor. The fever must have time to 

206 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 20J 

cool off, the reason to return. Experience must teach 
what affirmation could not teach. 

Years passed. Social equality came not to the 
Black. Neither did he long retain his political 
superiority. The rightful owners of the State drove 
out of power the dishonest carpet-bagger and his un- 
scrupulous black tools, and put a stop to the fearful 
knavery that was bankrupting the commonwealth. 
After a while the Negro learned that legislation could 
no longer give him his daily bread, and that hence- 
forth he must earn in the sweat of his face what bread 
he did not steal. Then he turned to his old master. 
The former confidence between them was gone, but 
there was between them a bond that gave hope of 
better things in days to come. If the ex-slave would 
not follow from love, he would follow because of the 
loaves and fishes. He had learned where his best 
interests lay. From necessity he had learned humil- 
ity. It was now possible to edify him without puffing 
him up. 

The attempt at edification was not made imme- 
diately. The distrust of those who remembered the 
past was not removable at beck and nod. Time must 
be given for the forgetting of fierce conflicts, and for 
the trying of new things, whether they were of tem- 
porary or of permanent duration. If the Negro had 
so changed that the Gospel of Jesus Christ would not 
incite him to leap the barrier of race and social con- 
dition that God himself had erected, then Churchmen 
were willing for the clergy to carry the Gospel to the 
Negro once more. 



208 CHURCH IN AL ABAMA. 

Finally, at what was deemed an opportune time, a 
new beginning was made in Mobile. It was in 1882 
— the year that saw the death of the last Black Belt 
congregation. The remnant of the old congregation 
of the Good Shepherd formed the nucleus. The clergy 
and the Bishop bore the entire burden of the attempt. 
They did not receive the co-operation of the laity; 
they neither asked nor expected it; for the, laymen of 
Mobile, those of them that were interested in ecclesi- 
astical and benevolent work, were already doing 
what they could for the numerous hospitals and 
widows' and orphans' homes in the city. 

The father of the revived mission work among the 
Negroes of Alabama was the Rev. J. S. Johnston, 
who had become rector of Trinity Church, Mobile, in 
1880. In May, 1882, as chairman of a special com- 
mittee to which was referred a portion of Bishop Wil- 
mer's address dwelling upon the Church's responsi- 
bility to the Negro, Mr. Johnson vigorously and 
clearly outlined the necessary steps to be taken in 
leading the Negro to true and acceptable worship of 
God. Premising that worship necessitated intelli- 
gence, he insisted that no lasting work could be done 
that did not seek the co-ordinate development of rnicd 
and soul. He soon created the opportunity to exem- 
plify his theory. On the afternoon of November 19, 
1882, he brought the Bishop to a hired room where he 
met the few members of the old organization. Steps to- 
wards reorganization were taken then and there. On 
the following Friday the Rev. Chester Newell, hear- 
ing of the proposed undertaking, gave the Bishop a 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 209 

lot at Kushla, a small neighboring village, the pro- 
ceeds of sale (ultimately about $300) to be applied to 
the erection of a new church of the Good Shepherd. 
With about twelve hundred dollars available (given 
by friends in New York) the building was begun. So 
soon as work actually commenced help came from 
outside sources. Within a year six thousand dollars 
had been expended in the purchase of the ground, the 
erection of church, rectory, and school-house, and the 
purchase of suitable furniture. The most liberal con- 
tributors to the support of the school, then and there- 
after, were Mr. William Butler Duncan, of New York, 
and the Rev. Dr. Saul, of Philadelphia. The day- 
school was named in honor of the latter. A Negro 
man became lay-reader, and held services. Mr. 
Johnston preached regularly and frequently. At the 
end of the year there were fourteen communicants and 
six candidates for confirmation, a day-school of thirty- 
nine pupils, and a Sunday school of one hundred. 

The Rev. Joseph L,. Tucker, rector of Christ Church, 
maintained nominal supervision of the mission for 
about one year. Then it became evident that this 
temporary arrangement must give way to the settle- 
ment of a minister-in-residence, who could give his 
entire time and attention to the work. The Bishop 
had said that the building should be attractive, the 
service in great part choral, and all things adapted 
to the characteristics of the people, and that, in his 
opinion, the offices of the Prayer Book were peculiarly 
suited to the Negro's needs, and could rubrically be 
so rendered as to adapt them to his tastes. Accord- 
ingly he sought a minister that would conduct the 



2IO HISTORY OF THE 



services at the Good Shepherd in accordance with his 
views. 

Such a one was found in the person of the Rev. A. 
Wallace Pierce, son of the Bishop of Arkansas. Mr. 
Pierce took charge in May, 1885. The day-school 
had increased to nearly sixty pupils, who were taught 
by two of the deaconesses from the Church Home, 
but the Sunday-school had not increased, and the 
number of communicants was only ten; and of these 
six were newly confirmed. The new minister at once 
established a ritual never before or since equalled in 
the diocese, introducing the Eastward Position, Ku- 
charistic and Vesper Lights, Bucharistic vestments, 
Choral celebrations of the Holy Communion and daily 
Offices, and Incense. He gave himself entirely and 
unreservedly to the work, living in the rectory and 
going in and out among the Negroes with as much 
freedom as if he were a missionary in Darkest Africa 
— perchance with more. On account of thus placing 
himself on the social plane of his congregation he 
soon met with several rebuffs from former friends. In 
order to prevent possible repetition of such disagree- 
able incidents he cut himself off entirely from the 
society of his own race, abjured diocesan meetings, 
and was approached by individual clergymen with 
great difficulty. His doctrine was as high as his 
ritual was elaborate, and his self-sacrifice was carried 
far beyond necessity and the highest wisdom. But 
whatever it was possible to do for the welfare of his 
people he did, and for seven years he gave every 
energy of body, mind, and soul to the material and 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 211 

spiritual advancement of his congregation. In the 
day-school an industrial department was added, and 
the girls were taught to sew, wash, iron, cook, and 
generally to prepare to earn their own living honestly 
and virtuously. In 1892 Mr. Pierce moved to another 
sphere of labor. 

Mr. Pierce was succeeded by the Rev. Joseph I,. 
Berne, who conducted the services along the lines 
pursued by his predecessor, but adopted other methods 
of pastoral care. The change did not prove of ad- 
vantage to the work. Congregations dwindled week 
by week, the Sunday-school fell off two-thirds, and 
few of the pupils in day-school and Sunday-school 
came to Confirmation. In 1896 it was determined 
that the prosperity, almost the continuance, of the 
work demanded the ministrations of a clergyman who 
could enter into his people's mode of thought. In 
that year a Negro priest, the Rev. James J. N. Thomp- 
son, took charge. Subsequent growth has been en- 
couraging, the communicants having been increased 
in a single year by twenty-five and the parishioners 
bv one hundred per cent. 

It had never been the Bishop's desire to attempt 
the organization of Negro congregations in the rural 
districts. He contended that the only reasonably 
hopeful fields were the cities and larger towns, 
where, as with whites so with blacks, the mind is 
more open to conviction and to the formation of new 
habits. Yet for many years no other place followed 
Mobile's lead; no other place, because no other clergy- 
man. Not until 1 89 1 was the second Negro congre- 



[J CHURCHJN ALABAMA. 

gation in Alabama founded — that of St. Mark's, Bir- 
mingham. The Rev. J. A. Van Hoose fathered the 
work, and its success has been due to his own personal 
interest. This work is still in the experimental stage, 
but if the past is the criterion of the future the wisdom 
of its methods and the energy manifested in their ap- 
plication make sure a success equal at least to that 
achieved in Mobile. Valuable gifts have been made, 
and a large brick building for an industrial school is 
completed. The entire property owned by St. Mark's 
mission, Birmingham, is valued at sixteen thousand 
dollars. That of the mission of the Good Shepherd, 
Mobile, is valued at twelve thousand dollars. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE ORPHANS' HOME. 

WHEN the Convention of 1865 met in Greens- 
boro Bishop Wilmer was able to announce the 
successful beginning, at Tuskaloosa, of the Church 
Home for Orphans, the purchase of suitable property 
and the possession of certain funds for investment. 

Within ten days after the Convention's adjournment 
the prospect for the orphans was gloomy. Lee had 
surrendered, Davis had been captured, and Watts 
arrested — the President, the General, and the Gov- 
ernor — and the Confederate bonds and certificates 
which constituted the bulk of subscriptions to the 
Orphans' Home were worthless. The support of the 
orphans had been swept away, save a few bales of 
cotton into which the Bishop had wisely converted 
four thousand dollars of Confederate money. On the 
proceeds of this cotton, together with what personal 
solicitation secured from the small pantries and smoke- 
houses of the surrounding country, the institution was 
supported nearly three years. 

Early in 1867 the Church Home property in Tuska- 
loosa, which had cost thirty thousand dollars in Con- 
federate money, was sold for two thousand dollars in 
gold; and right glad the Bishop was to make the sale. 
Litigation of a tedious and expensive nature had 
arisen almost the day the property was purchased, 

and when the sale was effected, the title made per- 

213 



214 HISTORY OF THK 



feet, and the lawyers were satisfied, fifteen hundred 
dollars remained. With this the orphans were re- 
moved to Mobile and settled in a two-room house on 
a lot given by St. John's parish. Two of the three 
deaconesses had for the last two years been engaged 
in conducting a girls' school at Spring Hill, and the 
orphans had been in charge of the other deaconess 
and the probationers; but the work of the Sisterhood 
was henceforth to be concentrated on the Home. The 
school was rented out and the sisters came into town. 
The enterprise was commenced with difficulty, and 
at first met every possible discouragement. The 
Bishop's wisdom in bringing the orphans to Mobile 
was seriously questioned. The city was impover- 
ished. The Church already owned a fourth interest 
in the Protestant Orphan Asylum, and Churchmen 
could not see the necessity for a distinctly Church 
home for orphans. Outside of Mobile, however, the 
removal gave great satisfaction. Orphans were sent 
in abundance from the interior; but strangely enough 
the communities that sent the orphans uniformly forgot 
to send any money along with them. The congre- 
gations in the interior believed in the economic prin- 
ciple of division of labor — they would undertake to 
supply orphans if Mobile would agree to support them. 
The Bishop felt this inequality and attempted, but 
unsuccessfully, to make the inland towns feel it. One 
of the reasons why he had established the school at 
Spring Hill was to provide revenue for the Home; 
but the revenue was insignificant and the load proved 
too heavy for the deaconesses in charge. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 215 

Race, creed, and denomination of parents were not 
the criteria of admission into the Home. The orphan 
was an orphan, whether it was a legitimate child or 
an illegitimate, and it demanded succor whether it 
was of Italian or of American descent. Only two 
things were pre-requisite to admittance : That neither 
parent was living, and that the child was destitute. 
The Home was a venture based on faith in God and 
confidence in humanity. At the outset the faith was 
exercised, the trial was met successfully, and the 
reward has continued uninterruptedly and in over- 
flowing measure to the present day. A butcher, not 
a Churchman, died and left three children for whom 
there were no relatives to provide. By the Bishop's 
direction the children were brought to the Home and 
were there carefully nurtured until they were able to 
go forth to earn their own living. The butchers of 
Mobile felt that such kindness to one of their number 
was a kindness to all, and they manifested their ap- 
preciation in a manner possibly without parallel. In 
the many years that have passed they have supplied 
the Homes with all the fresh meat that they use, and 
have never for a day wavered in their generosity. 
Money is invariably offered; it is invariably refused.* 

Not only to the butchers but to the entire city did the 
Home commend itself by its breadth of spirit, and not 
only the butchers but the entire city made ready and 
generous response. Given more freely to worldliness 
and grosser vices than any other city in the state, 

* It is worthy of note that not one of the five orphanages 
in Mobile ever has to pay for fresh meat. 



2l6 HISTORY OF THE 



Mobile has ever manifested a zeal and liberality to- 
wards institutions of beneficence that no other city in 
the state has even remotely approximated. Much has 
been forgiven her because she has loved much. Her 
very pleasure seeking she has turned into an instru- 
ment of mercy. The mad revelry of Shrove Tuesday, 
or "Mardi Gras," gave opportunity for a "Bazaar," 
which turned into the treasury of the Church Home 
about two thousand dollars annually. * Once in every 
year a society of train-men ran an excursion to Biloxi, 
Miss. , and gave the proceeds to. the orphans' homes in 
the city, the Church Home's share being one-fourth. 
Besides these organized benefactions individual gifts 
were large and constant. 

But while all praise should be given the people of 
Mobile for their liberal contributions to this institu- 
tion, the building of the endowment fund must be 
credited entirely to the economy of the deaconesses, 
which left a surplus from the yearly receipts, and to 
the sagacity of the Bishop in administering the funds 
thus saved. While the entire income was not more 
than three thousand dollars a year, one-half of this 
sum sufficed to support sixty persons. 

The remainder, except what was put in real estate, 
was invested, as it came to hand, in interest-bearing 
securities. At first the money was lent on individual 
notes. Then, as the amount grew larger, it was lent 

* In justice to the interior parishes it should be stated that 
not a few of them— notably Montgomery, Selma, Greensboro, 
Tuskaloosa — were liberal contributors, especially of articles 
for sale, to these Bazaars. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 21 7 

to private banking houses. Then when the solvency 
of the banks became doubtful the investment was 
changed to bonds of the county of Mobile. Only six 
thousand dollars was thus invested; and when the en- 
dowment grew beyond this it was invested in Ala- 
bama bonds, the Bishop as fiduciary preferring secu- 
rity to income. Alabama bonds were then at a dis- 
count, on account of the vast increase of the public 
debt in reconstruction times ; but some men had con- 
fidence in the State's power of recuperation, in the 
stability of her credit, and in the inevitable apprecia- 
tion of her bonds. Fortunate was it for the" Church 
and the Church Home that the Bishop of Alabama 
was one whose faith in Alabama had not been shaken. 
The first bonds that Bishop Wilmer bought for the 
Church Home cost from one-half to three-fourths of 
their face value, and bore from two to seven per cent. 
The latter bonds, known as "Class A," were the most 
profitable investment; for they increased regularly in 
the rate of interest, and, from paying three and four 
per cent on the investment when they were purchased, 
are now paying eight and ten per cent. The apprecia- 
tion of these securities was remarkably rapid, a bond 
that cost only $490 in 1879 costing $822 three years 
later. It was certain that these bonds would go to 
par, and at every opportunity the Bishop increased his 
holdings. Every batch, almost every bond, cost 
more than the last purchase. After 1887 all bonds 
were bought at a premium. 

Meanwhile the Home was enlarged in scope, a new 
department for boys was opened in another street, and 

15 



2l8 CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 

several lots were purchased to meet the hygienic 
demands of the present and the certain develop- 
ment of the future. Yet by virtue of the liberality of 
Mobile, the frugality of the deaconesses, and the 
sagacity of the Bishop, it came to pass that one day 
in 1896 Bishop Wilmer was able to announce to the 
people of Alabama that the Church Homes for 
Orphans had completed their endowment fund of 
$40,000, and that this amount was securely invested 
in registered bonds of the State of Alabama. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE CASK OF HAMNER HAIX. 

IT is a wide-spread delusion that the letter and the 
spirit of any law or agreement stand in such rela- 
tionship to each other that obedience to the spirit 
is possible only through disobedience to the letter. 
Always the letter must yield to the spirit, and justice 
to generosity. They who contend for exact obedience 
to the letter are termed formalists, and they who are 
unwilling to pay for generosity to one person by in- 
justice to another are looked upon as hard-hearted. 

These reflections are occasioned by a review of the 
many sharp conflicts and wide divergences of opinion 
and mutual recriminations that arose and held sway 
in diocesan Conventions through twenty years and 
more concerning the proper disposition of the Hamner 
Hall property in Montgomer}^ Through this period 
the property in question was developing legally and 
justly from an institution for the education of the 
young Churchmen of Alabama into the bulk of the 
Episcopal Endowment Fund, and through the same 
period uninformed amiability and illogical sentiment 
were enacting anew, and with the old-time result, the 
role of Dame Partington. The physical laws that 
govern tides and storms are not more clearly the laws 
of God than are those moral laws by which this meta- 
morphosis was guided. 

We have already seen that Hamner Hall was opened 
219 



220 HISTORY OF THE 



as the diocesan school for girls in October, i860, and 
that the school was immediately successful. But for 
two years the work was handicapped by lack of suit- 
able buildings, the present structure not being ready 
for occupancy till 1862. According to the original 
contract no rent was chargeable for this time, and into 
so much confusion did the Civil War throw all busi- 
ness that no attempt was made to collect payment of 
rent for the next three years. When the War ceased 
and satisfactory terms could not be made with Mr. 
Shepherd, the school was transferred to Prof. H. P. 
Lefebvre, who took charge in October, 1S65, and con- 
ducted it in a thoroughly satisfactory manner till his 
death, four years later. 

Meanwhile, in 1863, the trustees of Hamner Hall 
borrowed from the trustees of the Bishop's Fund the 
sum of $4,968. It was from this loan that all subse- 
quent complications arose. The Hamner Hall trustees 
were empowered by the incorporating act of the Legis- 
lature to sell or dispose of the property belonging to 
the corporation, and to borrow money and pledge the 
property of the corporation as security for the debt. 
The sum that they borrowed under such authority was 
for the purpose of making final payment for the erec- 
tion of the school-building. This debt was not secured 
by mortgage, the simple notes of the trustees being 
deemed ample security; nevertheless the property was 
liable, both morally and legally, for the payment of 
the loan. 

On this debt no payment, whether of principal or 

; 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 221 

of interest, was ever made by the trustees of Hamner 
Hall. 

The creation of the debt immediately altered the 
responsibility of the trustees. Originally holding the 
property in trust for a girls' school, but subsequently 
in the execution of their trust incurring a debt, they 
thenceforward held the property in trust for two sepa- 
rate and distinct objects: zst, The payment of the 
debt; 2nd, The education of the girls of Alabama. 
The original trust was displaced by the debt, whose 
payment now became, both legally and morally, the 
superior obligation. No transaction could now, 
either legally or morally, ignore the full payment of 
the debt with accrued interest. Failure to grasp this 
point of even worldly ethics was the cause of much of 
the ensuing discussion. 

Seven years passed, and the indebtedness remained 
unsettled. Throughout this time no interest was paid 
to the trustees of the Bishop's Fund; and Hamner 
Hall enjoyed the benefit of nearly five thousand dol- 
lars that had been given to endow the Episcopate and 
thus relieve parish treasuries. Considerable restless- 
ness began to appear, culminating in 1870, when the 
Rev. Horace Stringfellow, D. D., who had recently 
become rector of St. John's Church, Montgomery, 
proposed to his vestry that St. John's parish buy the 
Hamner Hall property and make it a parish school. 
Dr. Stringfellow had viewed with much dissatisfaction 
the closing of the school after Prof. Iyefebvre's death; 
no one had been found worthy to undertake its man- 
agement; and Dr. Stringfellow determined to explore 



222 HISTORY OF THE 



its possibilities under parochial instead of diocesan 
auspices. St. John's vestry agreed to Dr. String- 
fellow's proposition, a special committee of the Con- 
vention agreed with the vestry, and the Convention 
with its committee; the trustees of Hamner Hall 
looked favorably on a plan that promised to re-open 
the school, relieve them from further responsibility, 
and settle their indebtedness to the trustees of the 
Bishop's Fund; and the trustees of the Bishop's Fund 
felt that this transfer, by which the security for the 
debt would be increased, was the only escape from 
the alternatives of loss of their loan to Hamner Hall, 
or alienation of Hamner Hall from educational pur- 
poses. So with the free consent and glad approval of 
all concerned a quadrilateral agreement was made to 
the following effect: The vestry of St. John's Church 
bought Hamner Hall from its trustees. As payment 
the vestry assumed the debt of the trustees of Hamner 
Hall to the trustees of the Bishop's Fund. As secur- 
ity for the payment of this debt the vestry gave the 
trustees of the Bishop's Fund their note for five thou- 
sand dollars with interest, the note being payable in 
five years, and the mortgage being foreclosable, not 
simply upon failure to pay the principal at maturity, 
but also upon the first default in annual interest. The 
school was not to be diverted from the educational 
and charitable purposes to which it had been dedi- 
cated. 

Two things in this agreement must be held in view: 
ist, The only legal effect of the transfer was to make 
the ve>try of St. John's Church the trustees of Ham- 



CHURCH IN A LABAMA. 223 

ner Hall. The conditions of the trust were not 
changed by the change of trustees. The self-imposed 
trust for education was still subordinate to the state- 
imposed trust for the payment of a debt contracted in 
the execution of the original trust. 2nd, The Con- 
vention acted with generosity towards St. John's 
Church, and injustice towards the Bishop's Fund, in 
agreeing that five thousand dollars should be accepted 
in full payment for a debt that amounted to seven 
thousand five hundred dollars. Every other parish in 
the State must contribute towards the difference. 

However, as the event proved, it mattered not how 
much or how little was conceded. Hamner Hall was 
conducted as a girls' school two years longer, and 
during that time St. John's paid the interest on the 
debt. But in 1873 the girls' school was declared a 
failure, and Hamner Hall was converted into a boys' 
school, Francis K. Meade, of Virginia, becoming 
principal. Thereafter St. John's defaulted in interest 
every year. Still the trustees of the Bishop's Fund 
were lenient, and even when, in 1875, the principal 
fell due and was not paid, no foreclosure was made. 

Four years passed, and still the debt was unsettled, 
and still the interest, which itself might have been at 
work, was unpaid. Finally, in 1879, a settlement 
was made, which, it was thought, was final. The 
parties to the agreement were the rector and delega- 
tion of St. John's, on the one hand — Dr. Stringfellow, 
Joel White, John L. Cobbs, Charles T. Pollard, Pow- 
hatan I^ockett, and Josiah Morris — and a special com- 
mittee of the Convention, on the other, — the Rev. R. 



224 HISTORY OF THK 



H. Cobbs, the Rev. S. U. Smith, A. Benners, and 
Henry D. Clayton. Their settlement was adopted by 
the Convention. It was as follows: The trustees of 
the Bishop's Fund accepted from the vestry of St. 
John's parish a conveyance of the entire Hamner Hall 
property, including the Bishop Cobbs Orphans' Home, 
in satisfaction of the mortgage debt and accrued inter- 
est; but in consideration of the sum expended by St. 
John's parish in erecting the Orphans' Home, St. 
John's was to retain the use of that portion of the 
property till it should be needed as the residence of a 
future bishop. The debt for which St. John's was 
legally liable was seven thousand dollars, and Ham- 
ner Hall was accepted in lieu thereof. So, after many 
years, the Bishop's Fund had come into absolute pos- 
session of a piece of property whose immediate value 
was certainly not greater than the debt, and whose 
prospective value was purely conjectural. The trus- 
tees of the Bishop's Fund had apparently made a losing 
investment in lending Hamner Hall money. 

During the seven years that now elapsed (1879- 
1886), the Hamner Hall property was a veritable 
white elephant to the Bishop's Fund. A six-years' 
contract was made with the Rev. George M. Kverhart, 
D. D., who undertook to revive the girls' school. No 
rental was charged the first year, and the entire rental 
of the next two years was expended in repairs. Sub- 
sequently still larger amounts were allowed for repairs, 
and at the expiration of the lease the property had 
cost more than the rental had yielded. Nevertheless 
in 1885 the lease was renewed for a term of four years 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 225 

at an annual rental of $560, but the ''extraordinary 
repairs ' ' that were paid for out of this sum reduced 
the net income considerably. So, until 1887, the 
Hamner Hall property was a dead expense to the 
Bishop's Fund, and money that should have been 
helping the parishes pay the Bishop's salary was ex- 
pended for the benefit of a school that was really a 
private venture and in no way under diocesan super- 
vision. The Bishop's Fund had not found in Hamner 
Hall a Golconda; but now it began to dawn upon the 
trustees, and, a little later, upon others, that in the 
end the investment might be made profitable. Mont- 
gomery was growing, and from a straggling town of 
twelve thousand souls of whom one half were Negroes, 
bade fair to be the leading city of Alabama. In every 
part of the town property values were growing health- 
ily. This growth of population and appreciation in 
values was most marked in the southwestern portion 
of the city, in the vicinity of Hamner Hall, and this 
property now came to be looked upon as having great 
financial possibilities. Very shortly it was valued at 
several times its original cost. To its ultimate value 
none dared set a limit. 

At this juncture a few clergymen and laymen, over- 
zealous for the cause of education, made certain propo- 
sitions which were formulated and urged by the Rev. 
Dr. Bverhart, lessee of the school. In a pamphlet 
published by this reverend gentleman in 1887 the 
position was taken that no portion of the Hamner 
Hall property could justly be devoted to the support 
of the Episcopate, save the amount of principal and 



226 HISTORY OF THE 



interest of the debt of St. John's parish to the Bishop's 
Fund, and that after this claim was satisfied the re- 
mainder of the property, which he estimated as worth 
two hundred thousand dollars (so incredibly inflated 
were prices) , should be held in trust for a Girls' School , 
which, with such an endowment, could be maintained 
with merely nominal tuition. 

It was a position that many have taken under simi- 
lar circumstances. It was a position that none was 
ever known to take when the property taken for debt 
decreased in value. Hamner Hall, when accepted by 
the trustees of the Bishop's Fund was not worth more 
than the debt of St. John's parish for which it was re- 
ceived. Subsequent fluctuations of value were mat- 
ters of concern to the Bishop's Fund alone. Had the 
property at forced sale brought less than the debt, 
none would have suggested that the deficit would be a 
perpetual claim against any diocesan girls' school of 
the future. If there was no reponsibility under adver- 
sity, there could be no privilege in prosperity. The 
Bishop's Fund was not wedded to education " for bet- 
ter, " unless also " for worse. "* 

Dr. Everhart's untenable position was not long left 
unassailed. The trustees of the Bishop's Fund — N. 
H. R. Dawson, of Selma, and J. H. Fitts, of Tuska- 

* The celebrated case of Gilmer vs. Josiah Morris, which 
was fought all through the state and Federal courts, hinges 
on precisely the principles involved in this case of Hamner 
Hall. It is well worth studying in connection with this chap- 
ter, as it was decided in accordance with the views enunciated 
in the last paragraph written above. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 227 

loosa — submitted to the ensuing Council a voluminous 
report in which they reviewed the history of Hamner 
Hall with great minuteness and demonstrated the 
legal and the ethical unsoundness of Dr. Everhart's 
contention. Their language was not lacking in vigor: 
* ' You are requested to spoliate and destroy a sacred 
trust;" "The purpose of these persons is to wrest 
this property from the possession of the present own- 
ers, thus subverting the design of the original found- 
ers and destroying at one single blow the morals and 
good faith of the Convention. ' ' 

It has generally been the diocesan Council's custom 
to postpone consideration of momentous matters for 
at least twelve months, especially when discussion 
has engendered or threatens to engender acrimony. 
In this case the Council of 1887 was true to its tradition. 
A warm discussion followed the trustees report, and 
the temperature of the Council was rapidly nearing 
2i2° Fahrenheit when the entire matter was, in the 
interest of harmony, referred to a committee of three 
lawyers, with instructions to report to the next annual 
Council the legal status of Hamner Hall. This com- 
mittee, consisting of F. B. Clark, Jr., of Mobile, and 
H. C. Tompkins and Horace Stringfellow, Jr., of 
Montgomery, made a clear, succinct report the follow- 
ing year, fully upholding the report of the trustees of 
the Bishop's Fund, showing that the increased value 
•of the property was wholly irrelevant to the question 
of ownership, and concluding with the pregnant, 
comprehensive words: "The proceeds of such sale 
£i. e. , should the trustees see fit to sell the property] , 



228 HISTORY OF THE 



regardless of the amount it may bring, will be subject 
to the same trusts that the other property and money 
held by the trustees of the Bishop's Fund is subject 
to, and will be subject to none other." The Council 
concurred in this report. 

Dr. Everhart's lease expired the following year 
(1889). For the last few years the school had not 
been successful, either numerically or financially, and 
the lessee did not care to continue longer his thank- 
less attempt. No one else came forward to lengthen 
the list of failures. The property was therefore rented, 
first as a boarding-house, and afterwards as a private 
school for boys. A street was opened along the south 
side, and another at right angles to this, dividing the 
whole property into two equal parts. That on the 
east was subdivided into building lots, and many of 
these lots being sold on deferred payments with legal 
interest, the Bishop's Fund was soon growing rapidly 
from the constant accretion of these small sums, and 
the proceeds were promptly invested in registered 
Alabama bonds. 

Some lots still remain to be sold. The school build- 
ing and surrounding lot are rented, and are held b3 r 
direction of the Council in hope that changed condi- 
tions will yet make the school the nursery of the 
Churchwomen of Alabama. 

Inasmuch as the Churchmen of Alabama have been 
admonished, collectively and individually, that the 
failure of Hamner Hall as a diocesan school for girls 
has been a rebuke to their Churchmanship, and have 
been advised to increase their shame by considering 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 229 

the prosperity of denominational schools, especially 
of Baptist and Methodist schools, it is not amiss to 
inquire what ground exists for rebuke and self-accu- 
sation. 

Hamner Hall was dependent, of course, on two 
classes of pupils — day pupils and boarding pupils. 
The parents of day pupils demand two things of a 
girls' school — accessibility and reasonable expense. 
Hamner Hall met neither of these demands. It would 
have been hard to locate in Montgomery a more inac- 
cessible school. The majority of prospective patrons 
lived a mile or more away. In its earlier days public 
conveyances were lacking. Later on mule-cars 
brought the school nearer some of the pupils; but 
about this time the public school system sprang into 
prominence. These public schools were good. Their 
pupils received instruction at least as thorough as that 
given in private schools. Parents began to tire of 
paying tuition at one school while yet they were taxed 
to support another. Iyittle by little the local patron- 
age fell away, and the strenuous efforts made to coun- 
teract the inevitable were futile. 

Different causes operated to reduce the boarding 
patronage. ' ' Church School ' ' was the shibboleth at 
first, but later it could not be relied on to hold Church- 
men. Denominational schools have no reason for be- 
ing unless they inculcate denominational teaching— 
that is, the Gospel as understood by the denomination 
to which appeal is made. So, a Church school that 
suppresses, or even neglects, any legitimate Church 
influence, ceases to have any claim on Churchmen on 



230 HISTORY OF THE 



the ground that they are Churchmen. It may have a 
most excellent corps of teachers, a thorough curric- 
ulum, and an educator of note at its head, but if the 
teachers are chosen from different religious bodies for 
the purpose of drawing pupils from families connected 
with this denomination or that, and if, when these 
pupils are secured, certain changes are made in the 
devotional exercises, habits, and regulations of the 
school, in order that their feelings may not be hurt, 
then the school becomes to all intents and purposes 
simply a " non-denominational school," the strongest 
reason that could impel Churchmen to send their 
daughters to an expensive school is deliberately 
destroyed, and the most zealous Churchman is free to 
select that or an}^ other ' ' non- denominational school. ' ' 
This objection was raised against Hamner Hall school, 
if not justly, still for no inconsiderable portion of its 
existence. It was altogether legitimate for a lessee of 
the property to conduct the school according to his 
own plans and ideals. But when this was done with- 
out regard to the demands of Churchmanship the esprit 
du corps of the Church-folk of Alabama could no 
longer be invoked legitimately. * 

Reference has been made to the matter of expense. 

* In at least one portion of its existence this objection to 
Hamner Hall had no ground. In 1881 Dr. Everhart made the 
following report of religious exercises : " The chapel ser- 
vices consist of the Morning Prayer, beginning with the 
Lord's Prayer, and omitting one Lesson, and substituting more 
appropriate Collects for some of those in the regular order. 
On Fridays, the Litany is intoned. All the services are cho- 
ral in part, except Compline. " 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 231 

This was a potent factor in the decay of the school. 
A Church school must be conducted along economical 
lines. Its charges must bear some proportion to the 
financial ability of its prospective patrons. No matter 
how large are the salaries of high-priced teachers and 
the expenses of proffered luxuries, there is a limit be- 
yond which parents, however appreciative, cannot go. 
Almost every boarding-pupil represents some self-sac- 
rifice at home, and when luxury for daughters means 
drudgery for mothers it is small wonder that fathers 
send their children to schools where the curriculum is 
not inferior, though luxury and the cost thereof are 
markedly less. The management of Hamner Hall 
fell into the error of supposing that the Churchmen 
of Alabama were, as a rule, wealthy ; the charges 
were made according to the supposition ; and Church 
girls went to lower-priced schools. 

The strongest reason for the failure of the school as 
a diocesan institution remains to be considered. The 
strength of boarding-schools is in the villages and 
the country, where local educational advantages are 
meager. They receive few pupils from the cities and 
larger towns. Where boarding pupils for a Church- 
school were to be obtained if obtained at all, just there 
Churchmen were found in the smallest proportion. 
Always three-fourths of the Churchmen of Alabama 
have lived in the towns and cities. The boarding- 
pupils must come from the other one-fourth. This 
fraction comprised about four hundred families. Four 
hundred country families yield few boarding pupils 



232 CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 

to even the lowest-priced schools. To Hamner Hall 
they yielded a mere handful. 

These causes, then, — the inaccessibility of the school 
to day-pupils, the rise of the public-school system, the 
reputedly interdenominational character of the school, 
the great expense, and the unfavorable distribution of 
Churchmen — sufficiently explain the failure of Hamner 
Hall as a diocesan school for girls, and explain it 
without reflection upon the laity of Alabama. The 
diocese willl never have in successful operation the 
girls' school that it needs until women consecrated to 
God shall, with expectations of naught but their daily 
bread, give themselves to the cause. Thus the school 
shall rise superior to unfavorable conditions, and 
furnish forth a higher, Christian, Churchly education, 
at a cost commensurate with the ability of the great 
body of our laity. 



CHAPTER X. 

EDIFICATION AND DEMOLITION. 

THE half-century of diocesan life now closing has 
been marked by three waves of prosperity, fol- 
lowed by three troughs of depression. 

The first wave-length embraced the closing days of 
Bishop Cobbs' episcopate and the years of civil war. 

The second began in the early days of peace, and 
ended with the financial panic of 1873. 

The third followed close upon the cessation of gen- 
eral insecurity, and overlapped the local catastrophe 
of " Boom Times," by which social and diocesan con- 
ditions of life were revolutionized. 

Through the entire fifty years edification and demoli- 
tion have never been far apart, yet through all the 
changes the progress of the diocese, though peculiar, 
has been steady. It now becomes our task to point 
out and study the conditions of this growth through 
the last two periods. 

When peace was restored the diocese was slow to 

take her bearings. Alabama had been the least 

troubled section of the South, and many clergymen 

and laymen had sought a measure of peace and quiet 

within its borders. At the close of the war most of 

these strangers went back home. The departure of 

the clergy left a number of parishes vacant, and the 

departure of the laymen impaired the finances of 

other congregations. In Montgomery an entire par- 
— 16 233 



234 HISTORY OF THK 



ish was thus obliterated. Many refugees from Pensa- 
cola, Fla. , had come to Montgomery, and with them 
their minister, the Rev. J. J. Scott, formerly a clergy- 
man of this diocese. These organized the parish of 
the Holy Comforter in May, 1864. In another year 
or two the rector and almost the whole congregation 
had returned to Pensacola. The remnant, a few 
Montgomerians that had attached themselves to an 
exotic congregation, maintained a nominal organiza- 
tion for two or three years longer, under the rector- 
ship of the Rev. J. H. Ticknor; but the parish died at 
the early age of five years. 

In the single Conventional year of 1865-6 letters 
dimissory were given to twelve clergymen, who con- 
stituted more than one-third of the entire clerical 
force. Their departure was a serious loss to the dio- 
cese, for among them were John W. Beckwith, after- 
wards Bishop of Georgia; A. Gordon Bakewell, now 
of New Orleans; Henry Sansom, now of Vicksburg; 
and George F. Cushman, who had been chosen to 
preach the Council sermon in memory of Bishop 
Cobbs, and who afterwards was associate editor of 
The Churchman. Demopolis and Selma were doubly 
bereaved; their ministers were not, and their churches 
had been burned by Federal soldiers. 

There was much, indeed, to discourage, but the 
prospect was not of Cimmerian darkness. Northern 
dioceses and ecclesiastics were emphasizing and 
strengthening the unity of the Church by proffering 
little courtesies to their sisters and brethren in the 
afflicted South. Gladly did wealthy Churchmen of 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. . 235 



the East help the crippled missionary work of the 
South to its feet; and their liberality was unstinted 
until it was checked by the misunderstandings of 
reconstruction days. The Domestic and Foreign 
Missionary Society appropriated three thousand dol- 
lars for a single year's work in the diocese, and in 
the same year a layman of Louisville, Ky. , gave a 
thousand dollars more. With four thousand dollars 
from without the diocese the Bishop was enabled for 
a short time to put in execution his cherished plan of 
sending out evangelists to care for the scattered hand- 
fuls of people that were not under the stated ministra- 
tions of any other clergyman. The Rev. W. J. Per- 
due was evangelist along the Selma, Rome & Dalton 
Railroad, with headquarters at Wilsonville, and the 
Rev. Thomas J. Beard for North Alabama, with head- 
quarters at Athens. No report was ever made of Mr. 
Perdue's work, but the reports of Mr. Beard showed 
that he was holding stated services at Maysville, 
Madison Station, Mooresville, Athens, Decatur, Tus- 
cumbia, Florence, Triana, and Courtland. Through- 
out this field the prospects were especially promising. 
Bishop Wilmer was much pleased with his twelve 
months' evangelistic experiment, and sought at the be- 
ginning of the next year to add yet another to the 
corps of workers. Along the line that may be said 
to divide Middle and North Alabama the Church was 
unusually weak; but the few communicants scattered 
here and there were Christians and Churchmen. They 
were also possible nuclei of congregations. At Ely- 
ton, Montevallo, Alpine, Harpersville, Talladega, 



236 HISTORY OF THE 



Gainesville, Jonesboro, Lime Kiln, Silver Run, and 
Brierfield, were from two to fourteen communicants 
each. For this virgin field which Mr. Perdue seems 
scarcely to have touched the Bishop was earnestly 
seeking a missionary of the necessary staying and 
moving powers ; when one day he was notified by the 
Domestic and Foreign Missionary, which was at that 
time beginning to extend foreign missions at the ex- 
pense of domestic, that it had cut off twelve hundred 
dollars from the appropriation to Alabama. In the 
face of this reduction extension was out of the ques- 
tion ; it were well to support what was already in 
hand. The diocese was straining every nerve to 
give the clergy a scanty and uncertain support. No 
fixed amount was promised the Bishop ; and, except a 
few of the more favored in old and substantial parish- 
es, all the clergy, from bishop to youngest deacon, 
were entirely dependent on voluntary offerings, and 
were harassed with those temporal cares from which 
they should have been free, but which, since they 
must bear them, enabled them to sympathize as never 
before with their people. A reduced force, the result 
of their labors was unprecedented in the history of 
diocese. 

There was no fatalistic yielding to circumstances, 
and no Micawberish waiting for something to turn up. 
Many were the schemes, some fruitless, some fruitful, 
for the welfare of the diocese. A few of these de- 
serve notice : The publication of a Church paper, 
and the attempts to organize the missionary work and 
to systematize the financial operations of the Church. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 237 

The publication of a diocesan paper was suggested 
as early as 1867. The project was licked into shape 
in tw r o Conventions, and in June, 1868, the paper was 
launched with the name The Church Register. The 
Rev. J. H. Ticknor of Montgomery was at the helm. 
It was literally a venture of faith. Today when 
Churchmen in this diocese and throughout the South 
are twice and thrice as numerous as they were thirty 
years ago, the projector of a weekly Church journal, 
to be published in this portion of the country, would 
be a bold man. Mr. Ticknor's confidence was soon 
and rudely dispelled. Though the paper was cor- 
dially endorsed by the Bishops of Mississippi and 
Louisiana, and they promised to urge its circulation in 
their respective dioceses, the bulk of the circulation 
must be in Alabama. It was hoped that the weekly 
visits of such a paper, given, as it was, less to news 
than to instruction, would be the means of enlarging 
the borders of the Church. But faith does not come 
by reading, and the non-Churchman to whom appeal 
was made was the very man that could not be per- 
suaded to read what was written for him. A few of 
the faithful were marvellously edified, but the paper 
failed to achieve its main purpose. It was well edited, 
and Mr. Ticknor labored unselfishly and untiringly to 
keep it alive; but he was in the field fifty yeais too 
soon, and finally succumbed to the apathy and luke- 
warmness that are the common attitude of many of 
the clergy and most of the laity towards Church period- 
icals, whether general or diocesan. Three other at- 
tempts at a diocesan paper have since been made. In 



238 HISTORY OF THE 



1878 the Rev. George H. Hunt of Tuskaloosa tested 
the diocese with a monthly twenty- four-page magazine, 
2 he Old Church Path, which, though with few supe- 
riors in the plainness, directness, and simplicity of its 
instruction, was also but short-lived. In 1889 the 
Rev. L. W. Rose of Birmingham published The Ala- 
bama Churchman for a few months. Xot until 1892 
was a diocesan paper permanently established. Its 
first name, The Diocese of Alabama, proving unwieldly 
and confusing, was after a year changed to The Church 
Record. It was first published in Montgomery, but 
was after two years removed to Tuskaloosa, where it 
is now located. It has been of invaluable assistance 
in keeping the various portions and interests of the 
diocese in touch with one another. 

Bishop Wilmer insisted from the first that what the 
diocese needed for its financial salvation was system. 
Somehow it had become the tradition that faith and 
method were opposed to each other, that the weekly 
pledge destroj-ed the free-will offering, that to tie one's 
camel was to evince distrust of God. But fervent an- 
nual appeals and spasmodic efforts are not the way 
that either reason or revelation teaches us is best to 
meet demands that are not spasmodic. Persistent ex- 
penses must be met. if the}- are to be met properly, by 
perennial income. 

In like manner the evangelization of Alabama must 
not be by haphazard methods, but according to settled 
plan and on well-defined responsibility. This respon- 
sibility rested ultimately on the shoulders of the 
Bishop. He was encouraged to go forward, but he 



CHURCH IN ALA BAMA. 239 

was not provided with funds for the maintenance of 
outposts. He had no appointed advisers as to the dis- 
position of the missionaries and the allotment of 
funds. Such trust showed perfect confidence in the 
Bishop. It worked well in the outgo, because it fixed 
on one man the whole responsibility for wise expendi- 
ture ; but it worked ill in the income, because " the 
diocese" bore that responsibility, and in matters 
having no legal bearing the diocese is always an in- 
tangible entity without identity. 

The Bishop sought such organization of the mis- 
sionary work in its executive department as would 
delegate to the parochial clergy and the laity a portion 
of the responsibility that he was bearing, and arouse 
in them as individuals a sense of the necessity for sys- 
tematic endeavor to develop the sinews of war. His 
leading idea was to divide the diocese into Convoca- 
tions, and make each Convocation answerable for 
Church extension within its borders. The Conven- 
tion of 1869 fell in with this plan and adopted a quasi 
convocational system. The Convocations were to be 
five in number and were to be known as the Convoca- 
tions of Mobile, Montgomery, Selma, Demopolis, and 
Huntsville. Each Convocation was to be autono- 
mous, with such officers and regulations as were not 
in conflict with the diocesan law. * 

Unhappily, these Convocations did not come to the 
birth. For a year or so, it is true, two or three clergy- 

* The proposed distribution of Convocations gives incident- 
al witness to the congestion of the Church in the Black Belt 
— three out of the five Convocations being in that region. 



240 HISTORY OF THE 



men would meet in one another's parish and hold 
double daily services after the fashion of a Virginia 
"Association"; the visiting clergy were dined (and 
sometimes wined) from house to house, and were 
encouraged (and sometimes puffed up) by the praise 
of men. Such services were not without good effect 
on the established congregations, but they were not 
fulfilling the purpose for which Convocations w T ere 
desired. No aggressive ( and sustained missionary- 
operations were planned and undertaken, and the 
great majority of the clergy, content with the isola- 
tion of parochial life, were utterly indifferent to the 
movement. 

After a sleep of two years an attempt was made to 
infuse life into the project. Convocations had been 
established by ' ' resolution ' ' of the Convention. In 
the diocese were some good men that attributed the 
failure of the Convocational system entirely to the 
manner in which it had originated. They had great 
faith in canons, and contended that if the system could 
base itself on a canon instead of a resolution it would 
be sure to succeed. It happened, however, that there 
also lived in the diocese some influential clergymen 
and laymen to whom the "Digest of Canons" was 
peculiarly sacred. In their eyes its sanctity would 
be desecrated by the settlement therein of any ' ' Title, ' ' 
"Canon," "Section," or " Paragraph," that had not 
been tried and examined, in every bone, and nerve, 
and muscle, for at least two and preferably three or 
four consecutive Conventions. These were in suffi- 
cient force to prevent the proposed canon, " Of Convo- 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 241 

cations," from becoming a law immediately; and the 
Convention spent several years in discussing and 
amending the canon, and postponing consideration of 
it from each annual session to the next. * They were 
sublimely unmindful !of the inconsistency that the}?- 
manifested in refusing to do with the right hand what 
they had already done with the left. 

Finally, in 1873, the Convention adopted a canon 
that provided for the establishment of Convocations. 
Their number and their boundaries were left to the 
Bishop's determination; the Bishop also was to con- 
fer upon the presiding officer of each Convocation 
such ecclesiastical title — Dean, Archdeacon, or what 
not? — as he saw fit; and every minister was to give 
four Sundays in the year to such missionary work 
within the Convocation as the presiding officer should 
assign — his expenses to be paid out of the missionary 
treasury. 

Acting under the provisions of this canon, Bishop 
Wilmer, on May 20, 1873, set forth the four Convoca- 
tions of Huntsville, Tuskaloosa, Selma, and Mont- 
gomery, gave the title of " Dean" to their presiding 
officers, and appointed as Deans the Rev. Messrs. J. 
M. Banister, D. D., George H. Hunt, F. R. Hanson, 
and Horace Stringfellow, D. D. Two years later he 
called into being the Mobile Convocation — scarcely 
more than a clericus — and appointed the Rev. J. A. 
Massey, D. D. , Dean. These first Deans were imbued 

* In 1893 a special committee was appointed to revise the 
entire digest. At this writing (1898) it has not yet made its 
report. 



242 HISTORY OF THE 



with missionary spirit; but as the records of con voca- 
tional work were carelessly kept, easily misplaced, 
and soon lost, and the Deans themselves made only 
oral reports to the Convention, our knowledge of the 
specific undertakings of convocations is meager, be- 
ing limited, in fact, to one item: That the Birming- 
ham (formerly the Tuskaloosa) Convocation * had 
determined to concentrate its efforts upon Gadsden. 
It may be stated comprehensively that some of the 
clergy gave a few services when called upon, that the 
Convocations occasionally held sessions, that the 
work was done almost exclusively by the Deans, that 
the Deans aroused their own congregations and others 
to give more freely to diocesan missions, and that the 
burden of securing not only the missionaries, but also 
their stipends, was lifted as to its latter part from the 
Bishop's shoulders. 

Meanwhile no little energy was manifested in other 
lines of work. The Rev. Robert Jope's Boys' School 
at Summerville, Mobile, had a brief existence. The 
Orphans' Home at Huntsville, for which a fund was 
accumulating year after year, never materialized. 
The Rev. J. F. Smith's attempts at Autaugaville and 
Snowdoun, at the latter place of which a building 
fund of twelve hundred dollars was once in hand, 
were the beginning of a long series of dissolving 
views wherein faithful work was so often annihilated, 
as to corporate continuance, by the removal of all the 
congregation to other places. The same failure 
seemed to attend many of the efforts in Bast Ala- 
* The change of name was made in 1S85. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 243 

bama, where services were undertaken at Mount 
Meigs, Chunnanuggee, Oswichee, Seale, Cross Keys, 
Tallassee, and Auburn. At some of these points 
church buildings were erected, for a time occupied, 
and finally deserted and uncared for till they either 
were removed or rotted down. After twenty years 
new congregations appeared at Auburn and Mount 
Meigs; over the others death still reigns. But in this 
period were born the congregations at Birmingham, 
Talladega, Decatur, Union Springs, and Evergreen; 
while Montgomery (St. John's), Selma, Opelika, 
Greensboro, Demopolis, Hayneville, and Montevallo, 
were building themselves houses of worship, noble or 
simple, ornate or unpretending, according to their 
worldly circumstances. 

The outlook was encouraging. Two thousand six 
hundred communicants were enrolled on parish and 
missionary registers. The annual confirmations aver- 
aged three hundred and fifty. At Selma alone, with 
a communicant list of barely more than one hundred, 
fifty-six persons were confirmed in a single year. 
Three thousand five hundred dollars was given for 
diocesan missions. The churches at Montgomery, 
Mobile, Huntsville, Selma, Tuskaloosa, Union 
Springs, Greenville, Iyivingston, Kutaw, and Seale 
felt so comfortable financially that they voluntarily 
increased their assessments so that the Bishop's salary 
might be increased from four thousand to four thou- 
sand five hundred dollars.* It was now, when every 

* Some conception of prevalent financial conditions can be 
formed from knowledge of the assessments then levied (and 



244 HISTORY OF THE 



one had a mind to work, and when the whole diocesan 
edifice was progressing most favorably, that the panic 
of 1873 came, disorganizing all diocesan and parochial 
undertakings, crippling the larger congregations, and 
well-nigh threatening extinction to the missionary 
operations. 

The first blow came in the reduction by the Domes- 
tic Board of Missions of its allowance to Alabama. 
A few years previously the Board's appropriation had 
been three thousand dollars. After one year this had 
beeu reduced to eighteen hundred dollars. And now 
a further reduction was made to one thousand dollars. 
This action was taken two years before the storm 
burst and was consequent upon the first turn of the 
thumb-screw. 

At the same time missionary offerings within the 
diocese showed a sharp decline, the decline in a single 
year being one thousand dollars. This decrease was 
due in part to the general stringency, but chiefly to 
local demands for church buildings and other paro- 
chial enterprises which the largest contributors to dio- 
cesan missions — Mobile, Montgomery, Selma, and 
Huntsville — had begun and were forced to complete. 

The third blow was consequent upon the first two. 
Within a twelve-month the net decrease in the clerical 
force, which had largely recovered from the imme- 
diately post-bellum depletion, was six, and many 
church doors throughout the diocese were not opened 

paid). The largest were : Montgomery (St. John's) $i,coo ; 
Mobile (Christ Church) $880 ; Mobile (Trinity) $605 ; Hunts- 
ville $550 ; Selma $500 ; Mobile (St. John's) $300. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 245 

for months. Miss Catherine Wolfe, of New York, did 
much to relieve the ecclesiastical distress all over the 
country ; in Alabama alone she eased the situation 
materially by a gift of two thousand dollars. The 
missionaries had for a short period before this been re- 
ceiving a minimum stipend of one thousand dollars, 
but now their uncertain incomes were but a fraction 
of this amount, and what they received came irregu- 
larly. Those that were temporally and spiritually 
able remained at their posts ; some because they could 
not better their condition by moving away, most be- 
cause they were not hirelings. 

The passing of the crest in 1873 was the beginning 
of a time of long and anxious watching and waiting. 
Every financial and industrial collapse is followed by 
social and individual restlessness. New fields are 
tried by those who, not anchored by sheer inability to 
move, feel that they are at the storm center and that 
conditions elsewhere are surely more favorable. It 
was so in Alabama. The restlessness engendered by 
the Civil War had not passed when this new occasion 
brought on a more extensive running-to-and-fro than 
ever before. The ecclesiastical and spiritual injury 
would have been serious enough had these removals 
been only from place to place within the state. But 
unfortunately for Alabama it was at this time that 
hope was looking towards the setting sun and the 
stream of Western immigration was flowing level with 
its banks. Five thousand souls had been confirmed 
in the thirteen years of Bishop Wilmer's episcopate, 
yet scarcely more than three thousand communicants 



246 HISTORY OF THE 



remained in the diocese. The whole state was suffer- 
ing from depletion of population. Its mineral wealth 
was almost untouched. Its vast timber resources were 
undeveloped. Its manufactories were in the womb of 
time. Its strength lay in its cultivated fields. And 
its fields were wearing out under the negligent hus- 
bandry of white owner and black tenant. In not a 
few portions of the state the original forest was begin- 
ning to encroach upon the once cultivated fields and 
to resume its primeval sway — parabolic of the condi- 
tion of the Church. 

Patiently and hopefully had Bishop Wilmer worked, 
thus far, but when in 1874 the Board of Missions re- 
duced its apportionment to Alabama from one thousand 
dollars to a sum too insignificant to be mentioned, he 
gave measured expression to the indignation that such 
folly, whether partisan or but short-sighted, aroused 
within him: • ■ In the midst of our peculiar depression 
I had indulged the hope that the General Missionary 
Board would come to the aid of the Church in the 
Southern Dioceses. It would have been a reasonable 
hope. We might have been pardoned for supposing 
that the wise admonition of the Apostle would have 
been heeded — ' As we have opportunity, let us do 
good unto all men, especially unto them which are of 
the household of faith.' I wish to say no word in 
disparagement of any effort that looks to the weal 
of any class of men. I recognize fully the claims 
of the barbarian. But it strikes me that, for every 
reason, it is the wise policy aad stern duty of the 
Church to abandon no position that has been already 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 247 

gained, and to lose no ground that has been once 
occupied. If the Church in this country is to play 
the important part in the evangelization of the world 
that she is fitted for, then she is but poorly preparing 
herself for the mighty work in hand by allowing large 
areas of territory, now occupied by Anglo-Saxon 
people, to lie neglected, and (which is sadder still) to 
permit churches already established to perish for want 
of aid during a period of peculiar distress and im- 
poverishment. ' ' 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE REVOLUTION OF BOOM TIMES. 

THE low- water record of diocesan life was made in 
1875. In the following year improvement be- 
gan; for ten years it was constant; at no time was it 
remarkable. It was a decade of strong heart-throb 
and steady pulse-beat, of dawning consciousness of 
power and increasing determination to do and dare 
for Christ and His Kingdom. 

It was a period of rooting and transplanting. 
Growth along the Selma, Rome & Dalton Railroad 
from Selma to Cross Plains * was especially notable. 
In the Tennessee Valley the prospect became less 
discouraging. In the Gulf Coast missions results were 
at last perceptible. In the Black Belt almost every 
available point was occupied that had not long ago 
been tried and dropped. 

In the Mineral Region alone there was, at first, no 
progress, and no apparent hope of progress. A single 
parish, the Church of the Advent, had been organized 
at Birmingham, two miles northeast of Ely ton, as 
early as 1872;! it was first served by an eloquent 
preacher and faithful pastor, the Rev. Philip A. 

* Now Piedmont. 

t At this time Elyton had a population of 700 souls, and 
was the county seat. Birmingham had been incorporated the 
preceding year, the first house having been built August 29, 
1871, and was already a town of 2,000 inhabitants. 

248 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 249 

Fitts, who had abandoned a successful career at the 
bar that he might bear witness of the truth; but its 
growth was slow, and nine years elapsed before an- 
other congregation was organized in that region. 

Church extension in the Mineral Region began 
with the founding of Grace Church, Anniston, in 1881. 
This Church was one of the first fruits of the rapidly 
approaching Boom Times. Birmingham had already 
heralded forth her mineral wealth and industrial pos- 
sibilities, and people were already coming in, a few 
from the country at large, the majority from the agri- 
cultural regions and commercial centers of our own 
state. What the Klyton I,and Company was to Bir- 
mingham, that the Woodstock Iron Company was to 
Anniston. Each company developed its own city, 
but better preparation was made in Anniston than in 
Birmingham for the expected population. Before the 
city was thrown open to the world by the customary 
auction day of building lots, which is the birthday of 
all premeditated booms, the streets were macadamized 
and lighted, water mains were laid, and a sewerage 
system was completed. Chief among the promoters 
were the Nobles and Tylers, staunch and zealous 
Churchmen. These and a few others living in Annis- 
ton had been receiving regular ministrations from the 
Rev. J. F. Smith as far back as 1875, but no parochial 
organization had been attempted, and later on the 
services were intermittent; but now these persons, 
out of the wealth already coming to them, built at a 
cost of thirty thousand dollars a chaste and beautiful 
Gothic structure of gray stone, with inside furnish- 
— 17 



250 HISTORY OF THE 



ings of cedar and brass. The only defect of this 
church was its diminutiveness. The seating capacity 
was only two hundred and fifty, and was monopolized 
by the wealthier parishioners. There was no room 
for the poor. This defect was in part met by the 
erection at Glen Addie of a chapel for the poor; unfor- 
tunately many of the poor lived elsewhere. The re- 
sult was that Grace Church never became a large 
parish, and that its work among the poorest has been 
comparatively unimportant. 

Meanwhile the Church of the Advent, Birmingham, 
working in and from a small frame building intended 
for a village congregation, was growing rapidly. In 
two years it doubled in size, and year by year its de- 
velopment registered the growth of the city. Bir- 
mingham was leaving Anniston behind. They who 
were making haste to become rich cared more for op- 
portunities than for improvements. Anniston gave 
the latter, Birmingham the former. Anniston had 
iron ore in abundance, and fully equal in quality to 
that of Birmingham ; but Birmingham had what An- 
niston did not have — coal ; and this one consideration 
turned the main current of immigration into the Bir- 
mingham district, leaving but a modicum for Annis- 
ton. 

The speculative fever, the boom-specter that will 
not down, was soon rising, and as its opportunity was 
greatest in the vicinity of Birmingham so there it 
reached a higher temperature than elsewhere. It was 
not long ere metropolitan prices were paid per front 
foot. Every corner lot was a gold-mine. It mattered 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 25 I 

not that the frontage was on the primeval forest, and 
that the sanguine purchaser who dallied after night- 
fall upon his newly acquired property experienced no 
small difficulty in finding his w r ay out of the woods 
and back to inhabited avenues and streets. If there 
were no houses in the neighborhood, that was only 
because purchasers found it more profitable to sell un- 
improved property on a rising market ; the houses 
would come when the lots could remain in one man's 
hands long enough for the mason and the carpenter, 
whose operations were slower than those of aerial 
builders. If there w r as no rapid transit, that w T as not 
needed yet ; it would come as soon as the street began 
to build up ; meanw T hile dotted lines served at public 
auction and private sale to show the projected railway 
and street car systems. 

It was an exciting game, that of trying who could 
blow the bubble largest; and while it lasted fortunes 
were made, invested in other speculative enterprises — 
and ultimately lost. A single lot would often change 
hands a half-score times between day-dawn and mid- 
night, every purchaser selling it at a profit, and the 
same speculator buying and selling it more than once. 
It is easily seen that each inflation was a greater strain 
upon the existence of the bubble, increasing its tenuity, 
and bringing the day of bursting a step nearer. Gen- 
erally part payment was made for each purchase, and 
notes were given for the balance due. Thus was 
formed an ever growing chain of debtor- creditors, the 
failure of any one of whom to meet his obligations 
would be disastrous to all, and the danger of the ina- 



252 CHURCH IX ALABAM A. 

bility of some one increasing with even- transaction. 
However, the time of settlement was not yet at 
hand. The fever spread throughout Alabama, en- 
suring a long procession of men bringing with them 
more breath, more lung power, and more bubble- 
mixture. After a little these newcomers were starting 
new bubbles of their own in the vicinity of the center 
of activity. Xo pent-up Birmingham could contract 
their powers. Thus Woodlawn and Avondale, and, 
on a larger scale. Bessemer, were created. Bessemer, 
indeed, would fain have been the compeer of Birming- 
ham, but in her adventurous ambition succeeded only 
in giving new point to the ancient fable of the 
frog and the ox. In all these places Churchmen 
were found and congregations established. The Rev. 
Thomas J. Beard, who had become rector of the 
Church of the Advent, Birmingham, and the Rev. 
J. A. Van Hoose, a deacon whose injured eyesight 
had prevented him from pressing on to Priest's Orders, 
and who had become a prosperous business man, 
labored independently and indefatigably to meet the 
demands of the new-born conditions. In Birmingham 
alone from fifty to one hundred and fifty new commu- 
nicants were enrolled annually: how many came and 
went without making themselves known cannot be 
estimated. 

By 1887 the parish of the Advent numbered eleven 
hundred souls. Many of the congregation had re- 
moved to the South Highlands, and a new parish was 
a manifest necessity. At first the Rev. Mr. Beard re- 
tained charge of his old parishioners in the new parish 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 253 

of St. Mary's, but soon a neat frame building was 
erected and a rector was in charge — the Rev. L,. W. 
Rose. A few years later this church was burned, Mr. 
Rose went back to Virginia, a stone church was built 
on the plan of the former structure but on abetter site, 
and the Rev. Owen P. Fitzsimmons, recently a Pres- 
byterian minister, became rector. The congregation 
increased rapidly, its greatest grow 7 th being due to re- 
movals of the wealthier members of the Advent to 
the church which was nearest their new mansions on 
the Highlands. The parish church of the Advent 
was wofully inadequate to its needs, not more than 
two hundred persons being able to gain admission at 
the public services. A subscription paper was circu- 
lated, and enough money was raised, on paper, to 
build the present costly edifice. The cash, however, 
was not forthcoming, and when the church was finally 
completed (which was not until 1894) it was strug- 
gling under a mortgage debt of twenty-three thousand 
dollars. 

Not merely in the immediate vicinity of Birming- 
ham and Anniston but all through the hill country of 
Alabama prospectors and developers were at work, 
and workmen and speculators were multiplying. To 
catalogue these places would be foreign to the purpose 
of this record. Suffice it to say that to greater or less 
extent all of them demanded the ministrations of the 
Church. Whether the new comers were Alabamians 
or aliens, as Churchmen they had right to expect nur- 
ture from the Church in Alabama. Where, but a few 
years earlier, a single missionary with his headquar- 



254 HISTORY OF THE 



ters at Talladega, fifty miles away, sufficed for the 
score of communicants in this district, and found a 
horse and gig a sufficiently rapid means of locomotion, 
now ten clergymen were unequal to the demands and 
opportunities. Avondale, Bessemer, Blocton, Bloss- 
burg, Bridgeport, Coalburg, Fort Payne, Pratt City, 
and Woodlawn were a few of the new congregations. 
Twenty new parishes and missions were established 
in five years (1885- 1890), and in the same length of 
time the missionary force increased from seven to 
thirteen. 

The social and industrial revolution wrought by the 
development of the Mineral Regions had thus its coun- 
terpart in the congestion of the body ecclesiastical. 
There was engorgement of the large arteries, and the 
chill of death at the extremities. * The drain on the 
rural and village congregations was unprecedented. 
In five years Greensboro, Tuskaloosa, and Union- 
town lost one-third of their communicants; Union 
Springs lost two-thirds of hers; Livingston was almost 
obliterated, losing more communicants than were en- 
rolled in 1885. Of the larger non-boom places Selma 
lost nearly, and Montgomery more than, one hundred 
communicants, and Mobile more than two hundred. 
Hundreds of those who remained in their old homes 
brought themselves to sore straits to get money for 
"investment" in "good bargains'' and "sure 
things." Joint stock concerns bought up old fields 
in all possible and impossible locations, and received 

* See Bishop Wiliner's Council Address for 1887. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 255 

for shares much of the money that had been going 
into the parochial and missionary treasuries. 

Had the removal of the fortune-seekers been merely 
a transfer of strength to newly-formed congregations 
the upheaval might have been of immediate, positive 
benefit to the diocese. But with comparatively few 
exceptions the removal of a communicant into the 
boom district was a distinct loss of financial strength 
to the diocese, of personal service to the parish, and 
of true religion to the pilgrim. The men that made 
haste to be rich fell into divers temptations, and the 
glamour of gold concealed the evil of lowered stand- 
ards. They invested all their cash, and frequently 
discounted their incomes for months and years, in 
getting " a good start," and after paying their house- 
hold, office, and personal expenses, had but little left 
with which to pay their spiritual taxes. With the 
bursting of the bubble disappeared their capital, their 
employment, and their income. 

But they, and the congregations that they formed, 
did not disappear. Not one of the newly formed par- 
ishes and missions was annihilated. The wave that 
brought them there left them there. During the 
boom they had needed aid; after its collapse their 
need increased. Their formation into parishes had 
been effected with meteoric rapidity; their financial 
impoverishment followed with even greater celerity. 
Three years after its organization Trinity Church, 
Bessemer, was paying its rector a salary of twelve 
hundred dollars; two years later it was conjoined with 



256 CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 

Avondale and Woodlawn, and was paying only two 
hundred dollars toward the missionary's support. 

The old established congregations, with reduced 
numerical and financial strength, had not only to 
bear their own burdens, but also to help bear the 
burdens of the new weaklings. And right nobly did 
they rise to their new responsibility. When the boom 
began only twenty-two congregations in the diocese 
were helping the weaker congregations, and these 
gave only eighteen hundred dollars. When the boom 
collapsed thirty-three congregations were contributing 
thirty-five hundred dollars a year to the work. It is 
worthy of remark that with the exception of what was 
given by the Church of the Advent, Birmingham, and 
Grace Church, Anniston, every cent of this came from 
the congregations outside the boom districts. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE DIOCKSAN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 

t ( r "PHE difficulty of raising such small sums as we 
1 are speaking of — a few thousand dollars for 
mission and parish work — is not so much in the hard- 
ness of the times as in the want of system. We South- 
ern people are proverbially unsystematic. There are 
peoples with half our resources who accomplish double 
results. Practically, a very few of the people do the 
work of the Church ; and it falls heavily and unequal- 
ly upon the few. The great majority of our people 
stand aloof from active co-operation, and, I am satis- 
fied, not entirely from want of interest, but from the 
absence of a well-digested plan, by which each one 
shall be pledged to do regularly and systematically 
what he can afford to do. ' ' 

Bishop Wilmer was very urgent when he wrote 
these words in 1873. The general and increasing- 
financial stringency of the last few years had aroused 
murmuring and restlessness in many parishes. Some 
had complained outright that the assessment laid upon 
them for ' ' Conventional expenses ' ' — which were 
chiefly the Bishop's salary — was unbearable. Others 
had indirectly made the same complaint in their plea 
for " a more equitable adjustment" of assessments. 
Many had thought it hard that, with their limited re- 
sources, they should, after contributing liberally to- 
ward the Bishop's salary, be continually exhorted to 

257 



258 HISTORY OF THE 



give as liberally to aid the missionary work. This 
feeling was not quieted by the Convention's unpremedi- 
tated and impulsive increase of the Bishop's salary, in 
a year of so great distress, to $4,500.* With the dio- 
cesan assessment now twice as great as the amount 
contributed towards the support of the entire mission- 
ary staff, it was inevitable that individual parishes 
would understand the Convention to say, in effect: 
" We have placed a positive obligation upon you, and 
you must meet it. Your contribution to missionary 
operations is a voluntary contribution. We desire 
that you give to that cause as liberally as you can ; 
but before all else you must pay your debt to the 
Bishop." Likewise it was inevitable that, with a 
given amount raisable in each parish and with ex- 
clusion from the Convention as penalty for non- 
payment of the diocesan assessment, the parishes 
would pay their assessments and let the missionary 
work remain a stunted growth. 

What ought to have been done was one thing; what 
was done was another. For years the Bishop and 
others had been publishing tables of figures to prove 
that it was the easiest thing in the world for the diocese 
to raise from twenty to fifty thousand dollars a year 
for Conventional and Missionary purposes. "A dime 



* The Bishop's salary remained at $4,500 until 1879 when, 
at the Bishop's request it was reduced to $4,000. A still 
further reduction, with the same initiative, was made in 1892, 
when it was demonstrated after a year's trial that Alabama 
was unable to pay $7,000 a year for Episcopal service. Each 
Bishop has since then received a salary of 13,000. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 259 

a week from every communicant' ' — so ran the formula. 
But the communicants did not consist of wheat only. 
In neither diocesan nor parochial churches will the 
time ever come when every communicant will give a 
dime a week, or any other sum regularly, to the sup- 
port and extension of the Kingdom of God. 

Yet the Bishop's contention that many stood aloof 
from financial co-operation in Church work because of 
lack of system in the doing of Church work was, in 
the main, correct. The missionary operations of the 
diocese had come to that point where well-digested, 
thoroughly worked system was essential to further 
development. He that sets ten men to work does 
better than he that does the work of ten men. He 
that sets ten men to give does better than he that 
gives as much as ten men. These were, in effect, the 
principles on which Bishop Wilmer was working. 
He had set forth his ideas as soon as the subsiding 
ground swell from the Civil War allowed the consid- 
eration of aggressive work to come to the front. He 
had made many suggestions to the more prominent 
Churchmen as they gathered to the Conventions from 
year to year, and the clearness of his views and the 
force with which he expressed them stirred Conven- 
tion after Convention to interest, enthusiasm, and the 
passing of earnest resolutions. But when the Con- 
vention adjourned, and they returned home to confront 
the same old parochial trials and discouragements 
which had for a time passed from memory, the temper- 
ature of these good men fell very rapidly — a phenome- 
non not unknown in more recent da3^s. For example: 



260 HISTORY OF THE 



In 1869 the Convention resolved to give the offering 
on the second Sunday in every month to diocesan 
missions; and then the clergy went home and, to a 
man, forgot all about the resolution. The next year 
at Convention much compunction was manifested and 
it was determined to do better; but at the end of the 
next six months one solitary parish had given as much 
as one cent — and this despite the fact that the burden 
of supporting the eight missionaries was borne by the 
Bishop alone. Small wonder is it, then, that in 1872 
the Bishop very nearly rose in insurrection, and told 
the Convention plainly that he would no longer bear 
the Convention's own responsibility for support of the 
missionaries unless the brethren gave him, not words 
of approbation, but tangible evidence of determination 
to help. He demanded some system; he left the Con- 
vention free to choose its own plan. 

Sufficient pressure to cause movement having been 
applied, the Convention of 1872 gave Alabama its first 
attempt at systematizing the missionary work. The 
plan adopted was that presented by the Rev. Dr. 
Horace Stringfellow, Jr., a recent accession to the 
ranks of the diocesan clergy. It was extremely simple : 
To leave standing the old order for monthly offerings 
and to supplement these offerings by the pledge of a 
minimum sum from each congregation. The clergy 
and their lay delegates made pledges, and went home 
and kept them. The amount raised in the ensuing 
year was more than three thousand dollars. 

But it was in 1873 that the present system, which 
was allowed to sleep fourteen j^ears before it was 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 26 1 

aroused and put to work, saw the light. The Bishop 
had just made a strong plea for system to replace 
spasms. He had received enough money, in conse- 
quence of his appeal of the previous year, to keep 
open the churches at Jacksonville, Talladega, Monte- 
vallo, Union Springs, Seale, Carlo wville, Tilden, 
Opelika, Marion, Greenville, Evergreen, and Whist- 
ler; but he was unable to assist the congregations at 
Livingston, Pushmataha, Autaugaville, Gadsden and 
the smaller places in the Tennessee Valley. The 
Bishop's appeal was grounded on the thought that if 
the diocese was truly one body, each part must minis- 
ter to the others. " In theory/' he said, " we realize 
our mutual membership, one in the other, and our 
common membership in Christ. When we realize 
this in heart and deed, then the abundance of one will 
ever flow to the relief of another; the strong will reach 
its hand to help the weak; and, when charity becomes 
more perfect, will extend itself as unconsciously as 
one hand helps another in doing a work which one 
cannot do alone. In a word, we shall reproduce the 
Pentecostal spirit, and no man shall think that to be 
his own which a brother needs more than himself. ' ' 

There sat in this Convention a layman who, because 
of his reputation as a remarkably painstaking, method- 
ical, successful, trustworthy banker, was at this, the 
second, Convention he had attended in the novitiate 
of his Churchmanship, elected Treasurer of the dio- 
cese — Mr. James H. Fitts, of Tuskaloosa. Mr. Fitts 
was appointed a member of the special committee to 
which were referred the Bishop's observations on 



262 HISTORY OF THE 



missionary work. The Rev. R. A. Cobbs was chair- 
man of this committee, and, as chairman, his duty 
was to write the committee's report. But in the pre- 
liminary consultation of the committee Mr. Fitts sug- 
gested a plan so simple, yet so thorough and worka- 
ble, that the chairman and the entire committee 
requested him not only to formulate it, but to present 
it to the Convention as the committee's report. Like 
Columbus' method of setting an egg on end, it was 
alphabetical in simplicit}^; only — no one had thought 
of it before. 

First of all, the committee expressly condemned the 
existing plan of securing pledges from parishes as 
wrong in principle and unsatisfactory in results. In 
lieu thereof it recommended: 

ist, That it should be the duty of each clergyman 
to obtain from every communicant in his congregation 
a written pledge to pay a specific amount weekly for 
missions; this pledge to be given and redeemed through 
the Offertory, and thus formally consecrated to God; 

2nd, That it should be the duty of each clergyman 
to appoint collectors of the pledges not redeemed by 
the end of each month; 

3rd, That it should be the duty of each clergyman 
to transmit the receipts every month to the Treasurer 
of the Diocesan Missionary Fund; 

4th, That it should be the duty of the Treasurer of 
the Diocesan Missionary Fund to send a quarterly re- 
port of his receipts and disbursements to every clergy- 
man in the diocese; and, 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 263 

$th, That it should be the duty of the clergy to read 
these reports to their congregations. 

These recommendations aroused the liveliest inter- 
est and discussion. Some of the clergy were very 
jealous for the dignity of their order, and these un- 
limbered on the phraseolog}' of the report. They 
decidedly objected to having laymen dictate to them 
their "duty;" especially when that duty was pro- 
claimed to be the collecting of money in small amounts. 
They contended that the clergy were insulted by the 
attempt to make them the financial agents of an 
organization. The Rev. Dr. John Fulton very em- 
phatically assured the Convention that, as for him- 
self, he ' ' would not pick picayunes ' ' in Christ Church , 
Mobile. Some one suggested, in the interest of peace 
and harmony, that for the antagonizing phrase "It 
shall be the duty," should be substituted the less 
forcible, but more euphemistic, words, " It is recom- 
mended." But the committee stood by their guns. 
They thought they had property located the responsi- 
bility, and they purposed to fix it where it belonged. 
The opposition slept over the matter. After a good 
night's rest the committee's report did not seem so 
dreadful; besides, there was no penalty for disregard 
of the Convention's action. So in quieter mood they 
went up to the Church (Trinity Church, Mobile) 
that morning and made no opposition to the unani- 
mous adoption of the plan and its verbiage, exactly as 
proposed. 

So the Convention declared what was the duty of the 
clergy in the matter. The clergy by their own vote 



264 HISTORY OF THE 



confessed to a sense of their duty. The records show 
that they went back home and were as unanimously 
inactive, as they had been enactive. Not a single cler- 
gyman in Alabama did his self-confessed duty. A 
few, indeed, did put the Fitts plan into operation ; but 
these applied it strictly to parochial purposes!* 

The Bishop was in despair. For years he had urged 
system and at last the clergy seemed to declare that 
they would not have system. ' ' I will not press this 
matter further," was the Bishop's heart-sick con- 
clusion. " I have, perhaps, in the judgment of some, 
been already too importunate. If they think so, they 
must forgive me for my cause. ' ' 

So, systemless as to missionary finance, spasmodic- 
ally enthusiastic, and with income diminishing year 
by year, surely and constantly, until in 1883 the 
amount contributed was less than one thousand dol- 
lars, the Church in Alabama allowed her missionary 
work to disintegrate and her missionary force to slip 
from her nerveless grasp. One by one the clergy of 
the dependent congregations were dismissed to other 
dioceses, and were scattered to the four winds. They 
went to Tennessee, Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, 
Maryland, Kentucky, Indiana, Kansas, Texas — where- 
ever, in fact, there lived those who deemed the laborer 
worthy of his hire. They were frozen out, these men. 
Iyike the mercury shrinking before a cold-wave the 
missionary receipts fell from two thousand dollars to 
seventeen hundred, and then dropped rapidly to fifteen, 
to fourteen, to eleven, and finally (1883) rested at nine 



See Journal of 1874, page 42. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 265 

hundred; while the missionaries themselves decreased 
from twelve to ten, to seven, and finally to six. 

Through these ten years the Bishop remembered his 
words of former days, and resolutely refrained from 
importuning the diocese for "system." Once only 
did he refer, and then only incidentally, to this work. 
In 1878 he complained of the "utter want of all 
system ' ' in every branch of ecclesiastical endeavor, 
and suggested that the clergy and laity should be as- 
sociated with himself in the missionary work. There- 
upon the Convention, following its old custom, referred 
the suggestion to a special committee; the committee 
reported back a slight variation of the Fitts plan, the 
distinctive feature being the provision for an advisory 
committee of clergymen and laymen whom the Bishop 
could at his pleasure call into consultation. The Con- 
vention received the special committee's report, and 
referred it to the Committee on Canons to be shaped 
into a canon. This committee dawdled, and the plan 
was soon with the silent majority. 

So far the decade had been marked by disintegra- 
tion, decay, and discouragement. The first positive 
step towards the rehabilitation of the missionary work 
was taken in 1884. The old Convocational system 
had not, as we have seen, amounted to much, but 
now it was rubbed up a bit and found to have kept 
ready a number of ' ' Deans. ' ' As these deans were 
already nominally supervising missionary operations 
in their respective Convocations, what could be more 
natural, in integrating Church extension work, than 

to put them in the Bishop's missionary cabinet? 
— 18 



266 HISTORY OF THE 



What could be more natural than to add from each 
Convocation a layman, and thus bring representative 
clegynien and laymen from various parts of the dio- 
cese to feel a common interest in the entire work ? 
The men that formulated this idea were the Rev. Drs. 
Joseph E. Tucker and Horace Stringfellow, the Rev. 
Messrs. J. C Taylor and H. K. Rees, and Messrs. N. 
H. R. Dawson, David Buell, and Charles E. Waller. 
The resolutions presented by these men as a com- 
mittee went through without a dissenting voice, and 
the Convention followed up its action by at once 
placing on the ' ' Board of Missions ' ' men whose chief 
recommendation was not that they were figure-heads. 
The Bishop, of course, was President of the Board. 
The deans — the Rev. Messrs. H. K. Rees, Horace 
Stringfellow, D. D., R. H. Cobbs, D. D., T. J. Beard, 
and J. M. Banister, D. D. , — were ex-officio the clerical 
members. The lay-members elected were : J. H. 
Fitts, of Tuskaloosa ; R. E. Coxe, of Huntsville ; 
James Bond, of Mobile ; Charles E. Stickney, of 
Greensboro ; and David Buell, of Greenville. 

The creation of this Board of Missions and the ad- 
mission of laymen to a share of official responsibility 
was attended with immediate and marked improve- 
ment in the treasury and in the field of missions. Not 
only was the long and steady decline in receipts 
checked, but a sharp upward turn was given them, 
and in the following year they amounted to more than 
in any of the ten preceding years. The Bishop was 
enabled to put four new missionaries in the field at 
once, and to re-occupy the long vacant fields of 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 267 

Whistler, Citronelle, Grand Bay, and Bon Secour ; 
Livingston ; Burton's Hill (Fork of Greene) and 
Gainesville ; and Eufaula and Clayton. The diocese 
in next year's Convention assembled felicitated itself 
upon this improvement. Having done so much better 
than had been expected it proceeded for the next two 
or three years to do much worse than was to be ex- 
pected. Enough was raised to support the four new 
missionaries, but a number of congregations in North 
and Middle Alabama were still shepherdless and the 
missionary board was forced to play the horse-leech. 

It was not simply for salaries that money was needed; 
though in later days the overwhelming necessity to 
meet this demand has seemed to make the pay-roll 
the only legitimate channel of expenditure. Mis- 
sionaries, whose families were not infrequently of 
more than moderate size, needed assistance to pay 
their railroad fare into the diocese. One hundred 
dollars was appropriated towards the building of every 
new mission church or chapel. Sudden and excep- 
tional cases demanded immediate help. To meet all 
these extraordinary calls the Bishop appealed for one 
hundred communicants to give him ten dollars each 
per annum. Parishioners of Christ Church, Mobile, 
gave nearly one-fourth of what he desired. Every 
lay-member of the Board of Missions responded to 
the appeal. In all the remainder of the diocese only 
one person gave anything. 

It is possible, now, in the light of subsequent events, 
to diagnose the missionary condition: The laity of 
Alabama had never been properly approached in 



268 HISTORY OF THE 



behalf of diocesan missions. The thigh of fervent 
appeals, of exhortations to duty and denunciations of 
judgment for negligence, is not as large as the little 
ringer of detailed and correlated statements of facts, 
and illustrations of present conditions and future pos- 
sibilities. It is a moderate estimate that two-thirds of 
the Churchmen of Alabama never heard of a single 
one of the Convention's many missionary resolutions, 
and that ninety-nine one-hundredths were totally igno- 
rant of the status of missionary work in the diocese. 
Furthermore, it is safe to say that, under the condi- 
tions, wider information was impossible. What knowl- 
edge the clergy themselves had was ill- digested, and 
the clerical mind is so constituted that it has a tend- 
ency, often irresistible, to exhort before it has laid a 
solid foundation for exhortation. What the Church 
needed was a layman accustomed to dealing with facts, 
able to grasp them in detail and to arrange them in 
symmetrical proportion, desirous to study the condi- 
tions, and prepared to make them known to the con- 
gregations of the diocese. An organizer was wanted, 
an organizer that could speak and work with the 
authority of the Council behind him. Could such a 
man be found ? 

Charles B. Waller, a young lawyer of Greensboro, 
was the man to whom the Council turned as by divine 
guidance. For ten years Mr. Waller had been coming 
to Convention. For three years he had sat on the 
Board of Missions. In Convention and in Board he 
had often been heard in debate. From the first he 
was interested in the missionary problem. The earnest- 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 269 

ness with which he put forward his views on this sub- 
ject had marked him out as pre-eminently the man to 
push forward the organization of missionary finances. 
He was accordingly elected Treasurer.* His first 
duty as Treasurer was to relieve the Bishop of the 
responsibility of being the Board's financial agent. 
He threw himself into this new work with all his cus- 
tomary enthusiasm. He deemed the Fitts plan the 
best plan, and undertook to vitalize it. He spent 
much time in visiting all the larger parishes, and 
many of the smaller. Everywhere the clergy wel- 
comed him cordially. He addressed the congrega- 
tions from the chancel floor on Sunday, and followed 
up the good impression thus made by the immediate 
organization in most of the parishes of branches of the 
Missionary Society. St. John's, Montgomery, was 
the only parish whose rector refused point blank to 
allow the formation of the society within its borders,! 
but Dr. Stringfellow saw to it that no other parish 
exceeded his in the amount of its yearly contributions 
to missions. Everywhere the money began to flow 
in for the work. The boom, while depleting, had 
stirred, and the system moved off into new fields with 
the mighty momentum gained by the increase of re- 
ceipts in a single year from seventeen hundred to three 
thousand five hundred dollars. 

* All previous Treasurers of the Missionary Fund had lived 
in Mobile. Only four men had served in the entire forty-two 
years — Thomas W. McCoy, Joseph W. Field, Stephens Croom, 
and Robert Middleton. 

t Dr. Stringfellow never allowed any societies to be organ- 
ized in St. John's parish. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE GOLDEN AGE. 

HPHE life of a community and that of a common- 
1 wealth are alike in this: that long continued quie- 
tude brings mental stagnation and that unexpected up- 
heavals, threatening destruction of past labors, arouse 
latent energy and lead to fuller life and development. 

The life of a parish and that of a diocese are subject 
to similar conditions. The burning of a church is 
often the salvation of a parish. The economic per- 
turbation of a state is often the opportunity for dio- 
cesan progress. 

So it was in Alabama in the 'Eighties, and so it 
came about that the years when the Boom shook the 
agricultural and well-established town and city con- 
gregations to the center, and shook the very life out 
of some of them, were the years when the general 
condition of the diocese was, and was becoming, the 
most satisfactory. The years 1 884-1 891 may properly 
be termed the " Golden Age " of the Church in Ala- 
bama. The labors of the diocese were more abun- 
dant in these years, and the harvest was greater, than 
in any other period of the same length in the history 
of the diocese. 

1 . The earliest noticeable improvement came in the 

easier flow of money into the diocesan, parochial, and 

missionary treasuries. The loosing of purse-strings 

had first been for speculation in the mineral regions. 

270 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 27 1 

Bank deposits with cobwebs over them were brought 
out, and dusted, and pressed into active service. Men 
began to speak familiarly of amounts that previously 
had been mentioned with some reverence. For very 
shame at the contrast between their week-day expendi- 
tures and those of Sunday they pocketed the five-cent 
piece which habit had unconsciously separated from 
larger coin, and enriched the alms-basin with twen- 
ty-five cents. Twenty-five cents a month to diocesan 
missions began to seem parsimonious, and a fifty- cent 
pledge was given. A yearly subscription of twenty 
dollars to the rector's salary was raised to fifty dollars. 
The ministerial salaries were increased from ten to fifty 
per cent. Parochial debts were paid, improvements 
were made in church buildings and rectories, and 
goodly sums were gathered in trust for further develop- 
ment. The missionary income, under zealous admin- 
istration of the new system, remained more than three 
thousand dollars. Diocesan assessments were met 
promptly, and payment of the Bishop's salary was 
never carried into another fiscal 3^ear. 

2. Resulting from this favorable financial condition, 
wherein a diocese of five thousand communicants 
raised $125,000 in the single year 1889-90, was the 
second improvement, viz. , the increase in the number 
of clergy. The missionary force grew from seven to 
thirteen, and the active clergy from twenty -two to 
thirty-four. Not the least encouraging feature of this 
increase was that it was largely indigenous, giving 
promise (not always fulfilled) of a permanent minis- 
try of Alabamians wedded to their own people. 



2 72 HISTORY OF THE 



3. The infusion of all this new blood, by grafting 
and by ordination, aroused a godly emulation in the 
body clerical. In a single year (1888) the rector of 
St. John's, Mobile, made eleven hundred visits, bap- 
tized more than one hundred persons, preached one 
hundred and thirty-six sermons, and presented for 
Confirmation in the parish one hundred and twenty - 
three persons. Others worked no less indefatigably 
as their fields permitted. The missionaries did not 
preach so frequently as the city clergy, or baptize and 
visit so mam-, or present as large numbers for Con- 
firmation, but their diligence was not one whit less. 
Sometimes, though, they were permitted to waste a 
large amount of energy. For example: One minister 
was stationed at Auburn. Seven miles from Auburn 
was Opelika. The two places, each with less than 
thirty communicants, were served by different clergy- 
men, neither of whom had any other charge. The 
Auburn minister resided in his mission. The minis- 
ter who served Opelika lived first in Montgomery and 
afterwards at Decatur, Georgia. From the former 
place he traveled one hundred and thirty-two miles 
on each visit to Opelika, and from the latter two hun- 
dred and forty. When he lived in Montgomery each 
visit carried him through Auburn, and when he lived 
in Decatur he passed through Atlanta and three or 
four Georgia mission stations served by a minister 
who lived within three ??iiles of Opelika.* 

* The explanation of this remarkable condition is that 
Emmanuel Church, Opelika, was a " parish," and called its 
own minister. This particular minister, having independent 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 273 

4. The unexampled energy of the laity in personal 
work was one of the most encouraging features of this 
period. This manifested itself in two distinct lines — 
the growth of parochial societies and guilds, and the 
increase of lay- readers. The parochial societies were 
for the greater part expression of women's energy; 
they were engrossed with the raising of funds for 
parish improvements and the preparation of boxes for 
missionaries. The societies and their membership 
quadrupled in number in five years. lyay-readers had 
first appeared in Alabama, so far as can be ascertained 
from memory and records, in 1861, St. Paul's Church, 
Greensboro, being kept open by lay-service during the 
interval of six months between the removal of the 
Rev. Mr. Banister and the arrival of the Rev. Mr. 
Cobbs. They had done service again, at Marion and 
Uniontown, in 1865; but for years their numbers had 
been small and their duties nominal, their chief sphere 
of action being to read the prayers and lessons for the 
minister. In rare instances they had been known to 
do missionary work, and not infrequently they had, 
as at Greensboro, kept the church doors open between 
rectorships; but their availability did not develop 
fully until about 1880, when the necessity lay upon 
the Bishop, and was recognized by the laity, of extem- 
porizing an unordained and unsalaried diaconate to 

means, was satisfied to serve the parish for less than his 
traveling expenses. After his death Opelika's independence 
ceased, and that congregation and the congregation at Auburn 
were conjoined, and served by a minister receiving aid from 
the Board of Missions. 



274 HISTORY OF THK 



meet the exigencies of diocesan development. From 
this time forward men of ability offered themselves or 
were sought out by their minister. The Bishop, re- 
posing in this new force a confidence that they never 
betrayed, added to their commission as lay-readers, in 
some instances ' ' power to exhort ' ' — a faculty differ- 
ing from that of preaching by less than any apprecia- 
ble distinction. The majority of the lay-readers did 
good service at the smaller places — Uniontown, Fauns- 
dale, Eutaw, Prattville, Troy, Geneva, Columbia, and 
the like. Of the larger parishes only Christ Church, 
Mobile, seemed to realize the vast reserve of lay- 
energy only waiting to be evoked to evangelize the 
whole surrounding country. 

5. The number of confirmations steadily increased, 
until in 1889 more than five hundred persons received 
the Laying-on-of-Hands. Less than half as many 
were confirmed in the following year, the Bishop's 
illness allowing but few visitations. 

6. The general spirit of hopefulness gave men the 
courage to try greater things and the ability to accom- 
plish them. At one time six churches were awaiting 
consecration, having been built and completed almost 
simultaneously without debt. ' ' Divide and over- 
come ' ' became the cry in three cities that had each 
been content with one congregation, and soon the 
Holy Comforter, Montgomery; St. Mary's, Birming- 
ham; and St. Michael and All Angels', Anniston, 
were living, growing parishes. The last-named parish 
was due to the gift by Mr. John W. Noble, of Annis- 
ton, of a magnificent pile of buildings consisting of 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 275 

church, chapel, parish house, and rectory, built of 
stone, after the Norman order of architecture, at a cost 
of more than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 
It was established for the benefit of the poorer classes, 
but the anticipated increase of population was checked, 
just as the church was completed, by the collapse 
of values throughout the mineral regions, and St. 
Michael's has apparently yet many years to wait 
before it enters upon its destiny. About the time 
of the completion of St. Michael and All Angels' 
Church, Mr. Josiah Morris gave a ten thousand dol- 
lar chapel to St. John's, Montgomery, while Christ 
Church, Mobile, was enabled 03^ the hard work of the 
women, assisted by the munificence of Mr. H. A. 
Schroeder, to whom the parish already owed its rec- 
tory, to build a thoroughly modern parish-house cost- 
ing ten thousand dollars. A chapel costing the same 
amount was given to the Church of the Nativity, 
Huntsville, by Mrs. Wilson Bibb, as a memorial of 
her husband and little daughter. 

Such were some of the more encouraging features 
of the diocesan life in the later 'Eighties. 

On March 15, 1888, Bishop Wilmer issued a cir- 
cular letter announcing that on account of his failing 
health and increasing inability to give the necessary 
oversight to the missionary work he would ask the 
Council at its approaching session to elect an Assist- 
ant Bishop. The Bishop issued this letter without 
sounding public opinion, but public opinion was not 
slow in declaring itself. The proposition met with all 
but unanimous opposition, both by clergy and by laity. 



276 HISTORY OF THE 



They had not expected such a proposition, and the 
time was too short for them to come to a well-balanced 
decision. Moreover, Assistant Bishops were not as 
plentiful as Coadjutors are today. All that was 
known of the working of a double Episcopate was 
derived from the custom in Virginia of always having 
an Assistant ; and the clergy were afraid of the possi- 
bilities. When, therefore, the Council convened, the 
Bishop withdrew his notification. 

Though the Churchmen of Alabama were unwilling 
to elect an Assistant Bishop they were desirous to give 
the Bishop all possible non-episcopal assistance in his 
work. Accordingly, the Council of 1888 proceeded 
to create an office to which the Board of Missions 
should give the title. The Board called the officer 
"Archdeacon," and the Council elected as first 
(and, so far (1898), only) Archdeacon of the diocese 
the Rev. Horace Stringfellow, D. D. The duty of the 
Archdeacon was to relieve the Bishop of all detail 
work and to have general supervision of missionary 
posts. 

The same Council also provided for an Evangelist, 
but in tying to this provision another, that two thous- 
and dollars must be pledged specifically for the mis- 
sionary's salary, over and above the regular mission- 
ary offerings, before the Evangelist should be ap- 
pointed, it adopted the most effective method to kill 
the scheme at its birth. It is not improper to remark, 
in passing, that the Council has never been able to 
express the diocese's need for an Evangelist save in 
terms of two thousand dollars. It had added this 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 277 

same proviso to a like resolution adopted in 1887. It 
re-iterated the provision in 1891, and this time ren- 
dered success more improbable than ever by post- 
poning the appointment of the Evangelist until a 
salary of $2,500 a year should be guaranteed for three 
years. 

In fulfilling his archdiaconal functions Dr. String- 
fellow visited many of the smaller congregations, 
when the onerous duties of his own large parish 
permitted, and set many things in order. The brusque- 
uess of his manner and the positiveness of his convic- 
tions sometimes made ministers and congregations 
unwilling to follow his counsel, but ultimately wisdom 
justified her child. In some cases the Archdeacon 
was called upon to settle serious difficulties and mis- 
understandings. Among other cases he was able to 
secure the peaceable settlement of an unnecessary 
ritual squabble that had arisen in the little congrega- 
tion of St. Peter's, Talladega. The minister in charge 
of this parish had accepted two memorial vases, and, 
in placing them on the re-table, had taken occasion to 
discuss and defend ritualistic practices and symbolism 
in general. He had then set up a strong defence 
of these vases in particular, before anyone had been 
offended at their presence. Thus he invited and 
succeeded in bringing about ritual discussion and 
parochial division in a congregation that had pre- 
viously felt no interest in such questions, and created 
an abnormal apprehension of ritualism that has not 
been quieted to this day. Under Dr. Stringfellow's 



278 HISTORY OF THE 



advice the minister returned to Fond du I^ac and the 
congregation to church. 

It had been hoped by the more sanguine that with 
an Evangelist, an Archdeacon, and a Bishop, the 
supervision of missionary operations would be com- 
plete. So it would have been had the Evangelist 
been appointed, and the Bishop been able to visit all 
the places where confirmees were awaiting him. But 
the evangelist movement came to naught, and the 
Bishop was subject to more frequently recurring ill- 
ness. In 1889-90 he visited, in addition to the Mobile 
parishes, only the congregations at Evergreen, Green- 
ville, Hayneville, Lowndesboro, Selma, Uniontown, 
Faunsdale, Anniston, Jacksonville, and Talladega — 
fourteen in all. It was now evident to all that the 
well-being of the diocese demanded more Episcopal 
service than it was possible for Bishop Wilmer to give. 

When the Council of 1890 met in St. John's chapel, 
Montgomery, on May 20, it was the determination of 
not a few to reopen the matter of electing an Assistant 
Bishop. Bishop Wilmer made no suggestion one way 
or another. At Huntsville he had said that he would 
not again trouble the diocese with the question, and 
that the initiative in any subsequent reviving of it 
must be taken by the Council. The Council deter- 
mined to take the initiative. 

Dr. Stringfellow was presiding, Bishop Wilmer, 
though in the city, not being able to attend all the 
sessions. A committee was appointed to wait on the 
Bishop "with a view of ascertaining from him his 
wishes as to any episcopal assistance in the future. ' ' 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 279 

The committee was appointed only after vigorous 
opposition, led by Dr. Stringfellow, who deprecated 
any action whatever on the ground that the financial 
barrier was insuperable. Dr. Stringfellow himself 
was made chairman of the committee, and he ap- 
pointed as the remaining members the Revs. J. M. 
Banister, D. D. , and R. W. Barnwell, and Messrs. J. H. 
Fitts and R. M. Nelson. The committee had not 
been charged to express the Council's wishes; its in- 
structions were to ascertain the Bishop's wishes. The 
Bishop did not purpose to recede from his position 
taken three years before. He had no wishes; an 
assistant would be necessary in the future, but none 
was needed imperatively now; he trusted, on his 
physician's authority, that his present disability was 
but temporary; he expected to call in a neighboring 
Bishop to complete the visitation of the diocese. 

This was such an answer as they who knew Bishop 
Wilmer might have expected, but it was not an an- 
swer that satisfied the majority of the Council. At 
the noon recess the younger clergy and laymen, led 
by the Rev. J. A. Van Hoose, determined to press 
forward and to make known the Council's wishes to 
the Bishop. Immediately upon reassembling, the 
Council had before it a resolution that it would meet 
at 5 p. m. in Committee of the Whole ' ' to consider 
whether, in their judgment, the time has not arrived 
when the health and long and faithful services of the 
Bishop of the diocese demand such help as love and 
devotion to him and to the Church press upon us to 
offer, and to take into consideration the election of an 



280 HISTORY OF THE 



Assistant Bishop." The battle over this proposition 
was won by its advocates after three hours of deter- 
mined opposition. For another hour and a half in 
Committee of the Whole it was attempted to stave off 
the inevitable, but at 6:30 p. m. a series of resolutions 
was adopted declaring that the Bishop needed an 
assistant, and that the Council desired the Bishop's 
permission to proceed to the election of an Assistant 
Bishop, promising that the payment of a salary of 
three thousand dollars to the assistant should not in- 
volve any reduction in the Bishop's salary. A 
strongly favorable committee — the Rev. Messrs. R. 
W. Barnwell and Philip A. Fitts, and Mr. R. M. 
Nelson — communicated this action to the Bishop, who, 
next morning, gave his canonical consent to the elec- 
tion. 

The Council entered upon the election that after- 
noon. Three clergymen were placed in nomination — 
the Rev. Thomas F. Gailor of Sewanee, the Rev. 
Robert S. Barrett of Atlanta, and the Rev. J. S. 
Lindsay, D. D., of Boston. These clergymen were 
not candidates. They did not seek the office. They 
were nominated by their friends without previous 
consultation. Their friends, however, did considera- 
ble electioneering. It cannot be doubted that Mr. 
Gailor would have been elected but for the apparently 
well-founded assertion of some who knew him that he 
had unalterably cast in his lot with Tennessee. The 
choice then fell upon Dr. Lindsay, who, though rector 
of St. Paul's Church, Boston, was a native Virginian. 
A committee was appointed to notify Dr. Lindsay of 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 28 1 

his election. The parishes met the problem of the 
Assistant Bishop's support by voluntarily increasing 
their assessments. Then the Council adjourned. The 
committee on notification discharged its duty. Dr. 
Iyindsay declined the office. 

After ascertaining the further wishes of the diocese 
Bishop Wilmer convoked a special Council, which 
met in St. Paul's Church, Selma, on October 29, 
once more to elect an Assistant Bishop. The Rev. 
Mr. Barrett's friends, led by the Rev. L,. W. Rose, of 
Birmingham, and Mr. George A. Wilkins, of Selma, 
again brought forward the name of Mr. Barrett. The 
clergy, convinced that the representations that had 
prevented his election at Montgomery were unfounded, 
nominated him to the laity by a vote of fifteen out 
of a total of twenty-one votes cast— the Rev. Henry Mel- 
ville Jackson, D. D., of Richmond, receiving four 
votes, and the Rev. Philip A. H. Brown, of New 
York, two. When the nomination was communicated 
to the laity the strongest Churchmen in the diocese 
stood shoulder to shoulder in opposition to it. The 
nomination was rejected by a vote of fourteen parishes 
to seven. 

Upon the rejection of their nomination the clergy 
again withdrew for consultation. The friends of Mr. 
Barrett urged that the name of their nominee should 
once more be sent in to the laity. Failing in this, 
they next sought, but unsuccessfully, to bring about 
an adjournment of the Council without nomination. 
Many names were informally discussed, but none 
present seemed to have personal acquaintance with 

19 



282 HISTORY OF THK 



those whom they suggested, and at length only three 
were formally nominated — the Rev. R. W. Barnwell, 
of Selma, the Rev. Joseph Blount Cheshire, of Char- 
lotte, N. C. , and the Rev. Henry Melville Jackson, 
D. D., of Richmond. The nomination of Mr. Barn- 
well met with general approbation, and by almost 
unanimous vote the clergy were about to nominate 
him to the laity when he arose and most earnestly as- 
serted that no earthy consideration could induce him 
to accept the office even though the laity should elect 
him. Despite this statement he came within two votes 
of the clerical nomination on the first ballot. As it 
was, repeated ballots were taken, some of the clergy 
firing aimlessly into the air and some using blank 
cartridges. Finally the clergy returned to the nave of 
the church for consultation with the laity. It was 
now far into the night, and the attempt to adjourn 
without action was renewed. Again it failed. Once 
more the clergy prepared to ballot, this time without 
withdrawing, and on the second ballot, taken amid 
the breathless excitement of a large gathering of the 
public, the Rev. Dr. Jackson received the clerical 
nomination by a majority of one vote. The laity im- 
mediately and unanimously concurred in the nomina- 
tion, and Dr. Jackson was declared Assistant- Bishop- 
elect. The Rev. Messrs. J. L- Lancaster (who had 
nominated Dr. Lindsay and again had nominated Dr. 
Jackson), R. W. Barnwell, and Gardiner C. Tucker 
were appointed the committee to notify Dr. Jackson 
of his election. 

One or two clergymen, dissatisfied with the election, 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 283 

made certain representations to the Bishop-elect as to 
diocesan conditions, hoping that he would decline the 
office. Their hope was in vain, and Dr. Jackson was 
consecrated in St. Paul's Church, Selma, on January 
21, 1891, Bishop Wilmer consecrating, Bishop Ran- 
dolph (Assistant of Virginia) preaching the sermon, 
and Bishops Thompson of Mississippi and Peterkin 
of West Virginia presenting the Bishop-elect. All of 
these, together with Bishop Howe of South Carolina, 
united in the Laying-on-of-Hands. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

LOOKING BACKWARD. 

THE first particular that attracts attention as we 
review the history of the Church in Alabama 
for the past generation is the apparent strangeness of 
diocesan development. From 1861 to 1872 the com- 
municants were quadrupled in number, increasing 
from 1,683 t0 6,196; the contributions were sextupled, 
rising from twenty thousand dollars to one hundred 
and twenty-five thousand; but the number of congre- 
gations had not materially changed, and the number 
of clergymen in the active exercise of the ministry 
was exactly the same. Many of the old-time clergy 
had passed, and younger men filled their places. 
Many of the country congregations had disappeared 
in the general movement townwards, and while new 
parishes appeared here and there the net increase in 
the whole diocese was only twelve; and that, despite 
the fact that, on an average, one new church was 
built in every year of the entire period. 

We need not go far afield in search of ample ex- 
planation of this apparent combination of life and 
dry-rot. In these thirty years Montgomery, Selma, 
Birmingham, Anniston, and Huntsville, at first small 
towns, villages, or even without existence, became 
cities. Their growth was at the expense of the 
country and was out of all proportion to the growth 

of population in the state at large. As the cities 

284 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 285 

grew the city congregations increased in like propor- 
tion. As the villages and country were depopulated 
the rural congregations were diminished. As financial 
weakness came upon these little congregations some 
ministers were compelled to seek work elsewhere. 
Those that remained counteracted the reduced ability 
of single parishes by increasing the number of their 
charges. As the numbers and financial ability of the 
urban congregations increased new parishes were or- 
ganized and additional clergy called. Thus the loss 
in the rural clergy was met by the gain of clergymen 
in the city, and the extinction of country congrega- 
tions was about offset by the formation of new city 
parishes, while the average parish numbered many 
more communicants because of the increased propor- 
tion of city parishes. 

Nothing more clearly shows the transition of the 
diocese from a rural to an urban Church than the fact 
that while in 1862 one-half the communicants lived 
in the larger towns, in 1892 two-thirds lived therein; 
and that while the city growth of communicants in 
the same length of time was four hundred per cent, 
(or from eight hundred to thirty-two hundred) the 
country growth was only fifty per cent, (or from eight 
hundred to twelve hundred). That is to sa3^, the 
Church in Alabama has in thirty years grown four 
times as rapidly in the cities as in the smaller towns 
and the country.* 

* Of the sixty-six church buildings at the end of this period 
exactly one-half were built since 1862. These church build- 
ings represent thirty-three new congregations, and testify 



286 HISTORY OF THE 



Not less remarkable than the Church's peculiar 
growth was its absolute freedom from theological and 
ecclesiastical controversy. The clergy represented 
every school of thought that the Church tolerates, the 
questions of the day gave opportunity for wide differ- 
ences, and pugnacious men could have stirred up 
much trouble in diocesan consultations. The Cum- 
mins schism agitated the Church at large, ritual con- 
formity w r as sought through hard and fast limitations, 
and the doctrine of Regeneration, as contained in the 
Office for Holy Baptism, was a battlefield wherein 
many doughty knights jousted and broke spears. 
The clergy of Alabama were interested in these mat- 
ters, and approached and treated them according to 
individual bias. Some occasionally disputed in gen- 
eral Church journals with brethren of other sections. 
But the general temper was practical rather than 
speculative, and each attended to his own business — 
remaining steadfast in the communion of the Church, 
rendering the services according to the simple inter- 
pretation of unaffected dignity, baptizing the children 

to what few have sufficiently considered — that one-half the 
parishes and mission stations in Alabama were organized in 
the first thirty years of Bishop Wilmer's episcopate. The 
congregations organized in this period are: Athens, Anniston 
(3), Avondale, Auburn, Bessemer, Birmingham (2), Bon 
Secour, Clayton, Coalburg, Columbia, Dallas County (Grace) , 
Decatur, Evergreen Fowl River, Gadsden, Gainesville, Hayne- 
ville, Mount Meigs, Montevallo, Montgomery (1), Prattville, 
Piedmont, Sheffield, Scottsboro, Talladega, Trinity, Troy, 
Union Springs, Whistler, and Woodlawn. (Journal of 1892, 
pp. 42 and 43.) 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 287 

and trusting that God gave them new birth in the 
water of regeneration. Parochialism, prudence, and 
toleration make an incombustible mixture; and these 
were three distinct notes of the clerical character. 

But perhaps it was Bishop Wilmer's catholicity of 
spirit that contributed more than all other factors to 
this diocesan peace. The Bishop did not consider 
himself wiser than the Church, and did not abuse the 
Church's toleration, as some Bishops did, by using 
her catholicity for a cloak of sectarianism. He was 
very desirous that the General Convention should 
make a pronouncement upon the lawful limitations of 
ritual, but when the General Convention refused to 
enact the desired legislation he refused to declare un- 
lawful what the national Church tolerated. He had 
clearly denned opinions upon many points of contro- 
versy, but he did not canonize them. He made known 
his opinions, but he did not urge them, or transform 
them into a " godly admonition," unless a congrega- 
tion took offence at its minister's eccentricities of 
ritual or of dogma. If a clergyman avowed his dis- 
belief in the efficacy of prayer to change atmospheric 
conditions, and his congregation expressed no desire 
in time of drought to pray for rain , in time of flood to 
pray for fair weather, the clergyman and his congre- 
gation were at liberty to indulge their Mohammedan 
fatalism to its farthest reach. If a clergyman held hazy 
views of Apostolic Succession, questioning whether 
it were essential to the being or only to the well-being 
of the Church, but did not, in his incertitude, invite 
unordained ministers to preach in his church and ad- 



288 HISTORY OF THE 



minister the Sacraments, no Episcopal thunder rolled, 
and the utmost suggestion was that the head, and not 
the heart, must settle a matter of which Holy Scrip- 
ture and ancient authors give sufficient evidence. On 
the other hand, when unleavened bread w r as intro- 
duced it was not viewed as symbolic of Peter's Pence, 
but was highly commended by the Bishop, and all but 
universally adopted by the clergy, as being in sub- 
stance^the Bread of original institution and in form 
most suitable for a decent administration of the L,ord's 
Supper. When, too, genuflections, candles, anti- 
phons, Eucharistic vestments, and the like, were in- 
troduced by a few clergymen in small parishes, their 
innovations were left to work out their destiny in the 
congregation w r here they originated.* It was only 
when fundamentals were attacked, and the teachings 
of Christ as recorded in Holy Scripture were explained 
away, that the Bishop reproved both publicly and 
privately, and brought about, if not a return to purer 
doctrine, at least a discontinuance of heterodox teach- 
ing. Zwingianism and Transubstantiation, Mariola- 
try and Invocation of Saints, Papal Infallibility, the 
doctrine of Posthumous Purgation, and that of Univer- 
salism, were unsparingly brought under the search- 
light of Christ's words and impartially condemned as 
incompatible with Revelation. 

Through the whole generation a steady, uniform im- 

* The wisdom of this policy of non-interference is shown by 
the fact that except in one, and that a very weak, parish, ex- 
cessive ornateness of ritual, whether doctrinal or simply aes- 
thetic, has never survived the removal of its originator. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 289 

provement in the conduct of public services was ap- 
parent. When Bishop Wilmer came to the diocese 
some of the clergy, overawed by sectarianism and 
willing to throw it a sop in return for toleration, were 
remarkably lax in their conduct of public worship, not 
infrequently interjecting extemporaneous pra3^ers, 
and in more instances than one gathering the offerings 
of the people by sending around a hat, as if to rew 7 ard 
the preacher for his sermon, and then indifferently 
thrusting it under the Communion Table or behind 
the vestry-door.* There was no rule, save that of 
personal inclination, as to the behavior of the congre- 
gation during the Baptismal, Confirmation, Marriage, 
and Burial services, and the majority remained seated 
throughout as mere onlookers at a spectacle in which 
they had no part. All this the Bishop succeeded in 
banishing, persistently urging uniformity and reason- 
able ritual on the clergy and their congregations, and 
finally bringing about a dignified symbolism, im- 
pressive by its very simplicity to him that seeks to 
understand it. But almost invariably extravagant 
ritual and extreme dogmatism lived short lives. Rash 
attempts at boy-choirs in St. Wilfred's, Marion, and 
Trinity, Mobile, were laughed to an early grave, and 
it was not until Decembers, 1880, in St. John's, Mont- 
gomery, that the first permanent vested boy-choir was 
organized in the diocese. Choral services were spo- 
radic, met with small favor, and did not linger long. 
The exchange of surplice for preaching-gown and 
black gloves, in honor of the sermon, was a harmless 

* Bishop Wilmer's Convention Address for 1871, page 44. 



29O HISTORY OF THE 



bit of Evangelical ritual that also died long ago, but 
in Mobile the black gown is still used at funerals. 

But while theological and ritual controversy were 
happily absent the clergy succeeded, with the un- 
selfish assistance of the many lawyers in attendance 
upon Councils, in improving themselves in dialectics 
by perennially offering and opposing amendments to 
the diocesan Constitution and Canons, and by period- 
ically hauling the entire system over the coals of re- 
vision. At irregular intervals the canons were 
amended into irreconcilable confusion, and committees 
were appointed to harmonize them by preparing a 
new set. These were, as a rule, hastily prepared, 
unanimousily adopted, and continually amended. 
By good fortune, small attendance at Councils, and 
economy in distributing the Journals, comparatively 
few knew much about the law department of the dio- 
cese ; and the Church did her work as well as if she 
had no canons, and lived as healthily as do all bodies 
that are unconscious that they have such a thing as a 
constitution. 

Some diocesan legislation was very interesting. In 
1867 deacons could sit and speak in Council, but not 
until 1876 were they allowed to vote. In 1868, and 
again in 1874, the deputies to the General Convention 
were instructed to urge that body to set forth an au- 
thorized translation of the Nicene Creed for use in 
churches, the Filioque to be omitted as an interpola- 
tion without ecumenical authority, however true the 
doctrine. As early as 1869 it was required that dele- 
gates to the diocesan Convention should be communi- 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 29 1 

cants,* but not till 1891 was a like restriction adopted 
as to vestrymen. In 1871 the Convention refused, on 
motion of the Rev. Dr. Fulton, to ratify a proposed 
amendment to the Constitution of the national Church, 
which provided that new dioceses could not be organ- 
ized until they had satisfied the General Convention 
that they had a sufficient endowment fund to support 
the Bishop. In 1886 the name "Convention," by 
which the diocesan legislature had been known, was 
laid aside as having political connotations, and in its 
stead was resumed the more ecclesiastical title ' ' Coun- 
cil," which had been borne during the Civil War. 
In the same year the Council memorialized the Gen- 
eral Convention on the subject of lay-readers, urging 
that they should be at least twenty- three years old, 
that they should be required to begin the service at 
the ford's Prayer, and that they should be instructed 
to wear, as the canonical dress of lay-readers, "a short 
surplice worn over a cassock, without any stole or 
other ecclesiastical vestment or ornament, "f About 

* When the vote was taken and the result announced, two 
unconfirmed delegates arose and took formal and indignant 
leave of the Convention. They were both back again the 
following year — confirmed. 

fThe whole is wiser than any of its parts, and this memo- 
rial, which was adapted from a similar memorial presented in 
the same year by the Missionary Jurisdiction of Colorado, 
brought about no change in the existing canon. Twelve 
years before, in 1874, Bishop Bedell, of Ohio, wrote to a young 
candidate for Holy Orders, who was desirous to wear a choris- 
ter's cassock and cotta when officiating as lay-reader: " As to 
your request to wear a 'cotta': I am much obliged by your 
description of it. But it is evidently a garment not known 



292 HISTORY OF THE 



the same time the dignity of the Episcopate received 
additional safeguard, without diminution of its influ- 
ence, by a provision that the Bishop should not par- 
ticipate in any debate in the Council, but should have 
the privilege of delivering his sentiments upon the 
matter debated immediately before putting the ques- 
tion. 

This last mentioned action of the Council was in 
line with the uniform respect with which the Church 
in Alabama has ever treated its Bishops. No attempt 
has ever been consciously made to abridge the Episco- 
pal power, or to usurp any of its prerogatives.* Its 
Bishops have never been deemed infallible, and 
clergy me a and laymen alike have dared differ from 
them on matters both of discipline and doctrine, of 
opinion and of dogma, but they have been regarded 
as possessing inalienable rights and as having excep- 
tional mental and spiritual gifts. In 1871 some dio- 
cesan Churchmen would fain have erected the Bishop 
into a third branch of the Council, with legislative 

to our Church. The House of Bishops, in Bishop White's 
day, described the garments clerical to be ' the gown, the 
bands, and the surplice,' and expressly forbade candidates for 
the ministry to wear either. I cannot give you permission to 
wear either of those; nor can I allow you to wear a garment 
not known to the Church, in the diocese of Ohio." 

* This has been largely due to the fact that there has been 
no straining of the Episcopal authority. Bishop Wilmer has 
often said, concerning propositions to confer greater canon- 
ical power on the Episcopate, that such action would be un- 
wise; that if a Bishop is the right man he has already more 
power than he wants; if he is a weak man he cannot have too 
little. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 293 

powers co-ordinate with those of the clergy and the 
laity; but Dr. Fulton succeeded in having the matter 
referred to a committee, which, it was hoped, the Gen- 
eral Convention would some day appoint to take all 
such grave constitutional measures into consideration. 
Twenty years after a more zealous clergyman pursued 
this proposition to its logical outcome by suggesting 
that all diocesan legislation be left ' ' where it properly 
belongs — in the hands of the Bishop;" but the Coun- 
cil was unable to receive the proposition seriously. 



CHAPTER XV. 

AARON'S SONS AND HUR'S. 

IT is not the acts alone that interest us most in a 
study of the past. We desire to learn somewhat 
of the actors. We want to feel the pulse of person- 
ality, and know that the things of which we read were 
done by men of flesh and blood, neither superhuman 
nor marionetic, but of like passions with ourselves. 

Some there are who feel this necessity, but can 
yield to it only in part. To their vision one vast 
character — a Lincoln, a Napoleon, a Washington, a 
Caesar — fills the canvass, and all others are but pyg- 
mies. Yet, in truth, it were less wise to exalt a 
leader by speaking lightly of his subordinates than to 
elevate him by exalting his subordinates; for the gen- 
eral will always be above his lieutenants. 

These remarks have pointed application in the past 
conditions of the Church in Alabama. We should be 
led to infer from much that has been written that 
only two strong mental and spiritual forces have ap- 
peared in the entire history of the diocese — Bishop 
Cobbs and Bishop Wilmer. Yet as in the first episco- 
pate, so in the second there were other strong person- 
alities — lesser lights, it is true, yet of great mass and 
independent power. Hanson, Cushman, Massey, 
Pierce, Beckwith, Stickney, and Nevius, of the clergy, 
and White, Bunker, Taylor, Ross, S. G. Jones, Pol- 
lard, and Bryce, of the laity, belonged to both regimes. 

294 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 295 

The work of Stickney, Banister, R. H. Cobbs, Beard, 
Hunt, Stringfellow, Fulton, Drysdale, Everhart, John- 
ston, and the Tuckers (besides others previously men- 
tioned), lies within Bishop Wilmer's episcopate; as 
does also the ecclesiastical activity of Lefebvre, Buell, 
Bond, and Dawson, of the departed, and a score of 
prominent Church-workers now living. These men 
were not lay-figures, but were living, breathing, 
human beings, some knowledge of whose personality 
will add to our interest in their times. 

Francis R. Hanson was a typical clergyman of the 
the old school. A conservative Churchman, the title 
"Father," which affection bestowed on him in his 
old age, was not indicative of his theological views. 
Quiet and undemonstrative, he refrained alike from 
ordinary marks of affection and from emotional mani- 
festation of religious feeling. Yet these suppressed 
emotions were overpowering forces in the determina- 
tion of his actions. Shortly after ordination to the 
priesthood he felt impelled to offer himself for the 
foreign mission field. He was accepted, and sent to 
China. There hard and bitter and humiliating expe- 
rience taught him that emotion had led him into mis- 
understanding the voice of God. He had no aptitude 
for missionary work among the heathen, and he was 
entirely lacking in ability to learn a foreign language. 
He had been loving enough to be mastered by emo- 
tion; he was now sensible enough to understand what 
God said to him through the voice of his limitations; 
and he came back home. His life work was done in 
Alabama. For forty-one years he labored within a 



296 HISTORY OF THE 



radius of twenty-five miles, being rector of St. John's- 
in-the- Prairies, St. Andrews', Macon, and Trinity, 
Demopolis, from 1839 to 1873. Shortly after the close 
of civil war he made a tour through some of the 
Northern dioceses to solicit funds to rebuild the then 
ruined church at Demopolis. During this tour the 
rectorship of a beautiful church was offered him. The 
support was comfortable, the surroundings were at- 
tractive, and he was growing old and infirm. He in- 
stantly declined the call, and when pressed for his 
reason responded: "The people of Alabama shared 
with me their prosperity, and now I will share with 
them their adversity. ■ ' 

Horace Stringfellow, D. D., rector of St. John's 
Church, Montgomery, was the most prominent clergy- 
man of Bishop Wilmer's entire episcopate. He was 
made deacon by Bishop Whittingham and priest by 
Bishop Meade. His earliest ministry was spent in 
Virginia. At first his father, himself a clergyman of 
note, was distressed at the increasing elevation of his 
son's Churchmanship, but subsequently became rec- 
onciled to it when he saw that his son was not bound 
to the ' ' Harlot of the Seven Hills. ' ' Both before 
and after the civil war he was rector of Grace Church, 
Indianapolis, and during his second incumbency built 
St. Paul's Cathedral at a cost of one hundred thous- 
and dollars, superintending, as was his wont, the 
minutest details even of brick-laying and stone-cut- 
ting. He came to Alabama and St. John's in 1870 at 
Bishop Wilmer's urgent solicitation. From the first 
the soundness of his judgment and the strength of his 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 297 

will set him apart from the multitude. His strong 
convictions and unyielding temper were detrimental 
to his popularity among chance acquaintances, while 
his absent-mindedness and great stature, combining to 
make him overlook those whom he met, were instru- 
mental in wounding much self-esteem. But all yield- 
ed to him the honor due remarkable energy and 
ability, and those who knew him best admired and 
loved him most. 

A strong but not extreme Churchman, his energy 
was not absorbed by ecclesiastical activities, but went 
out into active works of mercy and morality. At one 
time he stirred the community so deeply on the sub- 
ject of a proposed cock-pit to be held at the State Fair 
that the management were but too glad to strike the 
brutalizing exhibit from their list of attractions. At 
another time when all combined action had failed he 
personally undertook first the building and later on 
the rehabilitation of the Infirmary, an institution 
sorely needed in Montgomery, and he succeeded in so 
interesting a few gentlemen, notably Ignatius Pollak, 
that money was forthcoming to pay all expenses until 
brighter days came. At social gatherings he bubbled 
over with spontaneous cheerfulness. True, he some- 
times invited a friend to breakfast, but forgot the in- 
vitation and cheerfully entertained his hungry guest 
in the library whither he himself had repaired after 
an early meal ; but after a time men learned to over- 
look such small matters as these, excused themselves 
after a brief visit, and hied them to some restaurant for 

bodily refreshment. In 1874, knowing that well nigh 
— 20 



298 HISTORY OF THB 



every delegate to the Convention, which was to meet in 
Kufaula, must pass through Montgomery and remain 
several hours, Dr. Stringfellow wrote a separate note 
to each clerical and lay delegate asking him to lunch- 
eon on the day before Council. Each supposed that 
only he was thus remembered, but when the rectory 
was reached late comers found the parlors filled and 
almost the entire Convention present. The women of 
the parish were there in force, and saw to it that the 
luncheon was comfortably despatched and that the 
Convention left the house in time to catch the after- 
noon train for Kufaula. 

Under Dr. Stringfellow 's rectorship St. John's 
Church was greatly enlarged and beautified. Under 
his immediate supervision, the new Christ Church, 
Tuskaloosa, and the Church of the Holy Comforter, 
Montgomery, were built; while he was interested in 
the building and furnishing of other churches in 
smaller towns. His fields of action were so many, 
and his energy was so intense and unresting, that all 
he asked of his congregation was, that they stand 
aside and let him do the work. He would have no 
parochial societies; he abhorred Easter Monday con- 
gregational meetings and discouraged attendance at 
them; and he gave the vestry to do only what it was 
physically impossible to do himself. His counsels 
controlled the diocesan Councils for at least a decade. 
In later years he was generally chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Canons; he was a member of the Standing 
Committee eight years; and he was a deputy to the 



CHURCH IN A LABAMA. 299 

General Convention, first from Indiana and then from 
Alabama, twenty-seven years. He died in 1893. 

Dr. John Fulton remained in Alabama only six 
years, coming from Georgia in 1869 and going to 
Indiana in 1874, but in that brief period he made a 
lasting impress of his personality upon the diocese. 
Already he was known as a canonist of great learning, 
and his reputation was enhanced by the publication 
of his Index Canonum in 1872, while he was rector of 
Christ Church, Mobile. His views were based on 
accurate information and were clear and compre- 
hensive, and his expression of them was marked by 
strict logical progression. He was always chairman 
of the Committee on Canons, member of the Standing 
Committee, and deputy to the General Convention. 
Abstract propositions did not exhaust his energies, 
nor did national and diocesan questions prevent him 
from guarding zealously the interests of his parish. 
Christ Church was a wealthy parish in those days, 
and paid its rector a salary of $4,500. Dr. Fulton 
was just thirty-five years old when he came to Ala- 
bama; he was endowed to a rare degree with a per- 
sonal magnetism that worked wonders upon pastoral 
burdens; his gift for extemporaneous speaking was 
extraordinary, and out of the full store of his ready 
mind the thought of a half hour extracted the material 
for a discourse brilliant and profound. The man was 
a clear-headed worker, the parish was a fertile field, 
and the harvest was plenteous. The Sunday congre- 
gations crowded the church, the yearly confirmations 
averaged twenty-five, and the annual income ranged 



300 HISTORY OF THE 



from fifteen to twenty-five thousand dollars. In this 
rectorship the parish debt was paid, and several 
thousand dollars given to the Church Home for Girls. 
Of the laymen who passed to their reward in the 
first decade ot Bishop Wilmer's episcopate, one of the 
most earnest was Prof. Hubert P. Iyefebvre, who had 
succeeded the Rev. J. Avery Shepherd, as principal of 
Hamner Hall, Montgomery. Professor Iyefebvre lived 
only four years after coming to Alabama in 1869, but 
those were years of good works and rapid develop- 
ment into a Church helper. Despite the unfavorable 
circumstances under which he assumed the manage- 
ment of Hamner Hall, the school enrolled thirty 
boarding pupils and one hundred day pupils in the 
first year of his incumbency. Apart from his effi- 
ciency as a teacher he possessed unusual aptitude for 
parochial work. Under his superintendency the Sun- 
day-school of St. John's attained an unusual degree 
of prosperity, and contributed largely to the support 
of the Bishop Cobbs Home for Orphans. He was 
chiefly instrumental in organizing and energizing 
the "Young Men's Episcopal Association" of Mont- 
gomery, like the Mobile Brotherhood of the Church, 
a local forerunner of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew. 
This Association established and supported the paro- 
chial school, wherein eighty children of the poor 
received free tuition and, in many cases, free clothing. 
In addition to these undertakings, Professor Lefebvre 
was beginning to take a lively interest in matters 
diocesan and was imparting his fire to others, when 
his work ceased. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 301 

David Buell was another layman of great intelli- 
gence, weight of character, zeal of service, and lib- 
erality of purse. A lawyer of prominence he was for 
many years the mainstay of St. Thomas' Church, 
Greenville. The practice in public speaking which 
he obtained at the bar rendered him exceptionally able 
in the chancel. Under his lay-readership the congre- 
gation, instead of decreasing, as is ordinarily the case 
under lay-ministration in an organized parish, in- 
creased steadily throughout his many months of con- 
tinous service, and not without regret consented to re- 
ceive once more ministrations from a resident priest. 

But the list grows of those into whose labors the 
present generation has entered, and our limits pre- 
clude further extension of the roll. Yet six men 
must be named, in passing, to ignore whom were to 
ignore six of the strongest pillars of the diocese : 
Joel White, modest, retiring, serving in the diocesan 
Convention of 1834 and thenceforward to the Council 
of 1896, first from Tuskaloosa, then from Montgom- 
ery, and a deputy to the General Conventions of 1835, 
1 87 1, 1877, 1880, and 1892, the host of every prom- 
inent man in the state for the last two generations ; 
James Bond, the mainspring of St. John's, Mobile, 
Chancellor of the diocese, or legal adviser of the 
Bishop, member of the Standing Committee and of 
the Committee on Canons, and deputy to the General 
Convention ; Samuel G. Jones, a foundation stone of 
Hamner Hall and of the original Church of the Holy 
Comforter, Montgomery ; N. H. R. Dawson, who in 
the twenty-six years in which he was treasurer of 



302 CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 

the Bishop's Fund brought the wreckage of that fund 
to thirty-five thousand dollars ; and Alexander R. 
Bell, and Charles T. Pollard, quiet and unassuming, 
perfect types of the Christian gentleman. 

To such clergymen and laymen does the Church in 
Alabama owe its present spiritual, theological, and 
financial ability to ride out the storms and distresses 
that assail it from time to time. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

PROSPECTIVE. 

THE author has now completed the undertaking 
which he proposed to himself of writing a his- 
tory of the Church in Alabama from the earliest times 
down to the close of the undivided episcopate of Bishop 
Wilmer; but he cannot lay down the pen without 
briefly declaring present conditions and forecasting 
the lines of future development. 

The present condition, then, is this: The Orphan's 
Home at Mobile has completed its endowment of 
$36,000,* and no longer appeals to the Church for 
assistance. The Bishop's Fund has increased to 
$38,000, and by the sale of lands in the near future 
will reach the limit of $50,000, when the necessity for 
assessments on parishes will be obviated and the 
Church will be free to give more generously to mis- 
sionary development.! 

The endowment of the Society for the Relief of Dis- 
abled Clergy and the Widows and Orphans of Deceased 
Clergy, after being laboriously brought by Christmas 
offerings and annual dues to well-nigh $20,000, was 

* The Bishop was compelled early in the present year (1898) 
to expend $4,000 of the $40,000 endowment in purchasing 
property, known as the "Widows' Row," adjoining the 
Church Home for Girls. 

f Councils and Finance Committees have for many years 
wrestled with the question: What portion of the income from 

303 



304 HISTORY OF THE 



largely sacrificed to political apprehension, in 1896, 
by the forced sale of Alabama bonds and the re-invest- 
ment of the proceeds in lower grade of securities, 
whose value is as yet indeterminate; and the work of 
the past ten years must again be undertaken. The 
Diocesan Missionary Society, without any endow- 
ment, dependent entirely on free-will-offerings from 
month to month, is supporting in part sixteen mis- 
sionaries, who are ministering to eighty congregations. 

the Bishop's Fund can properly be appropriated in any year 
to supplement the assessments laid upon parishes? It has 
been asserted that one-third of the income can thus be used, 
and this proposition is determined upon on the supposition 
that one-third of the whole amount saved after the War of 
Secession belonged to the "Special Fund" [for which see 
p. 89]. That this assertion has no foundation is evident from 
these two forgotten facts: 

1. During the War the two funds were confused, and no 
separation of them was subsequently made. [Compare Jour- 
nals: 1862, p. 24; 1863, p. 75; 1864, p. 27.] 

2. The division now accepted was made in 1869 by new 
Trustees— N. H. R. Dawson, George O. Baker, and A. G. 
Mabry — on a purely arbitral basis; and these Trustees say 
" they have no means of distinguishing the notes belonging 
to these two funds." [See Journals: 1868, pp. 31 and 34; 
1869, pp. 36 and 37.] 

Hence all subsequent citation of this report is simply to use 
a guess as basis for an argument. How wide of the mark the 
guess probab y is may be estimated from the fact that while 
in 1863 the Permanent Fund was $4,459 and the Special Fund 
$23,561, the 1869 Trustees assigned a nominal value of only 
$8,225 to the Special Fund and a value of $16,499 to the Per- 
manent Fund. 

Only one principle can be appealed to hereafter in the use 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 305 

Forty- two lay-readers are attempting to supply the 
serious breach in the Apostolic ministry caused by the 
practical obsoleteness of the diaconate. 

The lines of future development may be accurately 
forecasted by observation of the last two episcopates : 
The episcopate of Bishop Cobbs was the period of Ex- 
periment ; when it was tried what places would re- 
ceive the Church and what would not. The undivided 
episcopate of Bishop Wilmer was the period of Ad- 
justment ; when the necessity was laid upon the 
Church to meet the constantly changing conditions 
brought about by the civil' war, the panic of 1873, 
and the boom of 1885, and to transplant her parishes 
as her congregations were swept from country to 
village, and from village to city. Today with no 
panics, no booms in near prospect, but with sur- 
rounding forces that apparently ensure the per- 
manence of present industrial conditions and their 
development along normal lines, it would seem that 
the period upon which we are now entering is to be 
the period of Aggression ; wherein the Church is to 
go out into the byways and waste-places of Alabama 
where her voice has never been heard, and to preach 
the Gospel where it has never been heard in its com- 

of the Bishop's Fund: It was intended to form an endow- 
ment of 150,000 in order to free the parishes from taxation 
forever, not to help them tide over a crisis. 

Careful examination of the statements of this note has been 
made by Mr. J. H. Fitts, Treasurer of the Diocese and of the 
Bishop's Fund, and he gives them his unqualified endorse- 
ment. 



306 HISTORY OF THE 



pleteness, and where zeal has so long been left un- 
tempered by knowledge. 

The possibilities of such missionary aggression have 
been illustrated in the last few years b} T two note- 
worthy achievements — one in the agricultural regions 
and one in the mineral : 

Along the Alabama river missionaries had been 
active, as we have seen, as early as 1855, and the 
result of a few years' work was the establishment of 
congregations at Claiborne, St. Stephen's, Camden, 
Bladon, Butler, and Pushmataha. For some 3-ears 
services had been conducted with greater or less fre- 
quency and regularity ; but there were long periods 
when no ministers could be secured, and many of the 
Church-folk removed elsewhere, while nearly all of 
those who remained left their first love and lost all in- 
terest in the Church. The land lay fallow an entire 
generation. At one place, indeed, — Camden — efforts 
were long made to keep the spark alive, and the Rev. 
F. B. Lee made it many visits. But month 03^ month 
interest waned and congregations dwindled. At last 
one beautiful day Mr. Lee came and found that no 
provision had been made for sendees. He opened 
the church, sw T ept and dusted it, built a fire in the 
stove, rang the bell, donned his surplice, and prepared 
to enter the chancel. But no one w T as at the church ; 
he waited some time, and no one came. In fact the 
congregation had unanimousry remained at home ; 
and Mr. Lee thereafter followed their example. But 
in 1893 anew generation had grown up, many derelict 
Churchmen had become tired of the bitter-sweet of 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 307 

sectarianism, and a new attempt was made. Mr. 
John G. Murray, whose active interest in the work of 
the Selma chapter of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew 
had energized his long suppressed intention to become 
a candidate for Holy Orders, undertook, while but a 
lay-reader, tbe work of breaking up the ground. In 
a short while he was ministering to seven newly es- 
tablished congregations, of which three — Mount 
Pleasant and Perdue Hill, in Monroe County, and 
Camden, in Wilcox County, — were on or near the 
Alabama River, and four — Martin's Station, Orrville, 
and Tyler's, in Dallas County, and Stanton in Chilton 
County, — were grouped about Selma. They were 
known as the "Alabama River Missions, " but the 
Board of Missions was not called upon to help them 
until the re-formation of the field in 1896, caused by 
the removal of the Rev. Mr. Murray to Birmingham 
and the death of the Rev. F. B. Lee. Camden's old 
church, long the abode of bats and goats, was rebuilt. 
The old St. Luke's, Cahaba, was removed to Martin's 
Station. The dismantled building at Benton was 
sold, and the proceeds were used in the erection of a 
church at Tyler's. 

The other noteworthy missionary achievement of 
the recent past is that of the Rev. T. J. Beard, D. D., 
in the mineral regions about Birmingham. After his 
most successful work in North Alabama in the 'Sixties, 
and a brief sojourn in Arkansas, Mr. Beard had been 
rector of St. John's, Mobile, eleven years, and of the 
Church of the Advent, Birmingham, fourteen years. 
In 1896 he resigned the latter charge and returned to 



308 HISTORY OF THE 



the evangelistic work for which he was so admirably 
fitted. In a few months he had about solved the long- 
continuing problem: How to secure an Evangelist. 
With Bessemer, Woodlawn, and Avondale as a nucleus 
he proceeded to create a mission field. The many 
railways radiating from Birmingham gave him easy 
access to the mining camps and villages that had 
sprung up on hill-sides and in valleys like so many 
mushrooms. These villages grew like mushrooms, 
but with their iron roots it was plainly not theirs to 
die like mushrooms. Soon Dr. Beard was ministering 
at intervals of from a week to a month to eighteen 
congregations, generally visiting at least seven congre- 
gations every week. Adamsville, Brookside, Carbon 
Hill, Patton Mines, and Warrior, had never seen a 
clergyman of the Church, but already they have had 
baptisms and confirmations. Ashville, Blocton, Coal- 
burg, Cullman, and Jasper, had long before fainted 
by the wayside, but these are all now receiving both 
spiritual and numerical edification. 

In other portions of the diocese, too, successful 
attempts to establish missions are on foot. Notable 
among these is the Gulf Coast field. In the village 
of Bon Secour, all whose inhabitants are supported by 
fishing and oystering, only five or six families are not 
parishioners of St. Peter's. At Oak Grove, a mission 
established by the Mobile Brotherhood of St. Andrew, 
at Citronelle, at Navy Cove, at Magnolia, at Point 
Clear, and other places, has grown up a work not 
dreamed of ten years ago, not undertaken five years 
ago. 



CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 309 

It may be truthfully affirmed that the development 
of the Church in Alabama is limited only by the faith, 
the energy, the persistence of its head, and its body — 
the Bishops, and the clergy and laity. Many congre- 
gations now forming will disappear and some of the 
old congregations will die out, as congregations have 
disappeared in the past, but many of the new and 
most of the old will live, while in none will the disso- 
lution of the congregation mean, of necessity, the loss 
of the communicants. 

Two fields call for early endeavor and promise a 
goodly harvest. Southeast Alabama is a virgin field, 
wherein Bishop never yet worked; it is rapidly increas- 
ing in population, as railroads push in from every side, 
and water power is developed. Northwest Alabama, 
south of the Tennessee River, is just opening her arms 
to the outside world. These two sections of the state 
are today the most inviting fields, and if their invita- 
tion shall soon be accepted the number of congrega- 
tions in Alabama, which has increased fifty per cent, 
in five years, will at the end of the next five years have 
increased fifty per cent, on the present number. 

In Alabama, as elsewhere, men are becoming tired 
of a theology that anathematizes because of a variant 
philosophy about revelation. They are beginning to 
rebel against a discipline that makes the voice of 
prejudice the voice of God, and that in rural districts 
punishes with excommunication that which, under the 
same pair of eyes, is condoned in the town or the city. 
They will welcome, if she come in her own glorious 
apparel, the religious Body that brings them the una- 



3IO CHURCH IN ALABAMA. 

dulterated facts of the Creed as the test of theological 
and ecclesiastical orthodoxy, and the glorious freedom 
of the sons of God as the rule of their daily walk and 
conversation. 

It is for the Church to enter in and possess the land. 
There are giants to overcome; but so long as the Body 
is true to the Head there is no doubt as to the consum- 
mation. 

TH£ END. 



INDEX. 



Adamsville, 308. 

Alabama, first Ch. service?, 12; 
character of immigration, 14; 
general restlessness, 56; effect 
on Ch., 56 ; secession, 14y ; milita- 
ry province, 171 ; result of aboli- 
tion, 195; movement town ward, 
196; carpet-bag legislature, 197; 
emigration, 245; "Boom," 251. 

"Alabama Churchman," 238. 

Alabama River Missions, 307. 

Alison, H. L., 100,157. 

Alpine, 235. 

Americanism, manifestation of, 
124. 

Anniston, 98; J. F. Smith, 249; 
Grace Church, 249-50 ; Glen Ad- 
die, 2n0; 256; St. Michael and 
All Angels', 274-5; 278. 

Archdeacon, office of, 276; Dr. 
Stringfellowas,277. 

Architecture, church, 72. 

Ashville, 308. 

Athens, 67, 77, 235. 

Atkinson, Bp.. 48, 189, 192. 

Auburn, 50, 62, 68, 71, 74, 77,98,243, 
272 273 n. 

Auta'ugaville, 98, 148, 242, 261. 

Avery, Rev. John, 26 n. 

Avon dale, 252-4-6, 308. 

Bakewell, Rev. A. Gordon, 234. 
Baldwin, A. P., 21. 
Baldwin county, 29, 85. 
Banister, Rev. J. M., 109, 114, 154, 

241, 266, 273, 279, 295. 
Barnwell, Rev. R. W., 279, 280, 282. 
Barrett, Rev. R. S , 280-1. 
Bartley, Rev. W. M., 98. 
"Bazaar" in Mobile, 216. 
Beard, Rev. Thos. J., 235, 252, 266, 

295, 307-8. 
Beckwith, Rev. Jno. W., 234, 294. 
Bedell, Bp., 58. 
Beirne, Geo. P., 88, 102-3. 
Bell, A. R., 109, 302. 
Benners, A., 224 
Benton, 55, 118, 307. 
Berne, Rev. J. L., 211. 
Bessemer, 252-4-5, 308. 
Bethsalem, 68. 
Bibb, Mrs. Wilson, 275. 



Birmingham, 98, 243; Advent or- 
ganized, 248; Philip A. Fitts at, 
248; rapid growth, 250; T. J. 
Beard, 252; St. A.ary's, 252-3, 
274 ; new churches, 253, 256. 

Bishops of Alabama, provisional, 
19, 31, 38; diocesan, 39, 157, 283. 

Bishop's Fund, origin, 29; Ive&' 
work, 29; at a standstill, 85-6; 
Tayloe's work, 86; a compli- 
cated scheme, 87; subscribers, 
88; income from, 89; "Special 
Fund" and ''Permanent Fund" 
distinguished, 89-90; Lay's 
work, 9<>; Convention seeks to 
violate agreement, 91-2; invest- 
ment of, 91; loan to Hamner 
Hall and outcome, 220-8; pro- 
portion now useable, 303-5 n. 

"Black Belt," bulk of Ch. in (1844\ 
49; war time missions, 167; 248. 

Bladon Springs, 50, 98, 306. 

Blocton, 254, 308. 

Blossburg, 254, 

Board of Missions organized, 266. 

Boligee, 67. 

Bon Secour, 267, 308. 

Bond, James, 266, 295, 301. 

Boy choirs, 289. 

Breck, Jas. Lloyd, 107. 

Bridgeport, 254. 

Brierfield, 236. 

Brookside, 308. 

Brotherhood of the Church, 138- 
40 ; of St. Andrew, 308. 

Brown, Rev. Philip A H., 281. 

Brownell, Bp., provisional Bp. of 
Ala., 19; visits Selma, etc , 21; 
26, 28; delegates duties to Bp. 
Otey, 31. 

Bryce, Peter, 294. 

Buell, David, 266, 295, 301. 

Bunker, R. S , 141 n, 294. 

Burton's Hill, 54, 67, 71, 267. 

Butler, 50, 98, 306. 

Cahaba, 66, 71, 74, 78-9, 82, 307. 
Camden, 71, 77, 306-7. 
"Canebrake," Negro work in, 

200. 
Canons, first set, 21 ; defective, 26 ; 

of lay discipline, 132; 290-3. 



3" 



312 



INDKX. 



Carbon Hill, 308. 

Carlowville, 77-8, 98, 99, 103, 261. 

Cathedral, All Souls', projected, 
143; purposes and support, 
144-5. 

Cheshire, Rev. Joseph Blount, 
282. 

Choirs, quartette, 73 ; vested, 289. 

Christian Rev. W. D , 167. 

Church in U. S., causes of slow 
growth, 14-16. 

" Church Record," 238. 

" < hurch Register," 237. 

Churchmanship, Bp. Cobbs', 123- 
31; diocese's, 123, 130; Lewis' 
and Knapp's,130; Bp.Wilmer's, 
287-8. 

Churchmen, of Revolution, 15; 
build first Prot. church in Mo- 
bile, 18; apathy in 1833, 23; 
sympathy with sectarianism, 
127; activity, 140; worldliness, 
146. 

Citronelle, 267, 308. 

Claiborne, 306. 

Clark, F. B., Jr., 227. 

Clayton, 267. 

Clayton, Henry D., 224. 

Clergy, restlessness, 61 ; first per- 
version, 28 ; salaries, 51 ; paroch- 
ialism, 60; sectarianism, 70; 
called for one year, 153; as 
school teachers, 134; extreme 
propriety, 134. 

Cleveland. Geo., 94. 

Coalburg, 254, 308, 

Cobbs, Bp., election and conse- 
cration, 39 ; early life, 43-8 ; sal- 
ary, 51 ; immediate success, 
51; plan of work, 53; a typical 
visitation, 53 ; communicant 
list, 54; miss, excursions, 54-5; 
not panic-stricken, 58; health, 
62, 141 ; accident, 62 ; removal to 
Montgomery, 66; a year's work, 
66-9 ; work among Negroes, 82 ; 
sole charge of dioc. miss., 96; 
rector of St. John's, Montgom- 
ery, 96; proposition from 
Greene Springs, 106; on Ro- 
manism, 125; Bp. Ives' defec- 
tion, 126; on false liberality, 
127; difficult theological path, 
127; treatment of alarmists, 
128 ; on " wider hope," 128 ; pas- 
toral theology, 128; on "Prin- 
ciple," 129; on dancing, 129; on 
rented pews, 136; visits En- 
gland, 141; Univ. of So., 142; 
143; Cathedral project. 143-5; 
despondence, 146 ; Church's 



sympathy, 147 ; opposes Seces- 
sion, 148 ; prayer, 148 ; death, 149. 

Cobbs, Joh ; L., 223. 

Cobbs, Rev. R. A., 262. 

Cobbs, Rev. R. H., 77, 114, 224, 
266, 273, 295. 

Columbia, 274. 

Comegys, E. F., 106. 

Confirmation classes, 69; why 
small, 70; in Mobile, 75; during 
War, 167; at Selma, 243. 

" Convention," name abandoned, 
291. 

Convocations, projected, 239; 
failure, 240; established, 241; 
small success, 242. 

Cook, Rev. Thos. A., 29, 34-5, 135. 

" Council," name adopted, 291. 

Country churches, 76-7. 

Courtland, 67, 235. 

Coxe, R. E., 266. 

Coxe, Bp. Arthur Cleveland, 58. 

Croom, Isaac, 86, 88. 

Croom, Stephens, 269 n. 

Cross Keys, 243. 

Cross Plains. See Piedmont. 

Cullman, 308. 

Cushman, Rev. Geo. F , 45, 62, 79, 
104, 107, 113, 121, 167, 234, 2S4. 

Dallas County, 50; St. David's, 
55, 68, 77, 82, 83, 86, 97 ; Pleasant 
Hill, 55; St. Peter's, 68; St. 
Paul's, 68. 

Davenport, J. M., 21. 

Davis, Rev. Robert, 17, 18. 

Dawson, L. E.,100. 

Dawson, N. H. R., 104, 226, 266, 
295,301. 

Deans, 241. 

Deaconesses, order of, instituted, 
170; at Tuskaloosa, 170; at 
Spring Hill, 214; in Mobile, 210, 
216. 

Decatur, 22, 67, 235, 243. 

DemopoliS, 25, 26, 50, 68, 71, 77, 82, 
169, 234, 243, 296. 

Denniston, Rev. Edward, 98. 

Diocesan papers, 237-8. 

Diocese of Ala., organized, 19; in 
union with Gen. Conv., 24; 
stratification, 49 ; weakness, 50 ; 
clergy (1844), 50; obstacles, 57- 
63; rural character of early, 76, 
93 ; progressiveness, 137 ; seces- 
sion, 153-4; proposed division, 
154-5 ; a lone star, 165 ; military 
interference, 176, and its effect, 
186; hard times, 236; emigra- 
tion, 245 ; practically abandoned 
by Board of Miss., 246; lack 



INDEX. 



313 



of system, 259; disintegrating 
mission work, 264; peculiar de- 
velopment, 284 ; catholicity. 286- 
88 ; ritual uniformity, 289 ; new 
fields, 309-10. 

Division of diocese, suggested, 
146; proposed, 154. 

Doctrine. Oxford movement, 57 ; 
Bp. Cobbs on, 59; ignorance of 
Churchmen, 60. 

Drysdale, Rev. Alex., 295. 

Duncan, Wm. Butler, 209. 

Eliott, John, 51. 

Elliott, Bp. 157, 190. 

Ellerbee, A. W., 109, 154; John, 

100. 
Elyton, 63, 67, 235, 248. 
Episcopal authority, 292 n. 
Episcopal elections ; staved of, 

32 ; 38, 156, 157, 280, 281. 
Episcopate, endowment of, 32. 

See Bishop's Fund. 
Episcopate, necessity for, 37; 

anomalous position of, 144. 
Eufaula, 33 n, 55, 68, 71, 77, 267. 
Eutaw, 64, 67, 68, 82, 98, 243, 274. 
Evangelist, need for, 93 : first obj. 

of Miss. Soc, 95; need passes, 

96; first two evangelists, 235; 

fruitless attempts, 276-7. 
Evergreen, 77, 243, 261, 278. 
Everhart, Rev. Geo. M., 114, 224, 

225, 227, 230 », 295. 

Farmer, Robert, 11. 
Faunsdale, 71, 82, 83, 169, 274, 278. 
Field, Joseph W., 269 n. 
Fitts, Rev. Philip A., 248-9, 280. 
FittS. J. H., 226, 261, 266, ^79. 
Fitzsimons, Rev. Owen P., 253. 
Florence, 13, 21, 29, 38, 49, 67, 77, 

235. 
"Flush Times," 30; collapse of, 

30; 85. 
" Fork of Greene." 67, 68, 267. 
Forkland, 26 n., 72 n. 
Fort Fayne, 254. 
Foster, C. M., 106. 
French mission, 167. 
Fulton, Rev. John, 263, 291, 293, 

295 , sketch of 299. 

Gadsden, 261. 
Gailor, Rev. T. F., 280. 
Gainesville, 67, 98, 236, 267. 
Gallion, 26. 68, 71,296. 
Gay, Rev. J. L , 33 n. 
Gar row, Wm. M., 88. 
General Convention, sectional 
feeling in, 182, 189, 190. 

21 



"General Orders," of Woods, 177; 

of Thomas, 183. 
German mission, 167. 
Geneva, 274. 

Gilmer vs. Josiah Morris, 226 re. 
Girard, 50. 
Gould, Wm. P., 88. 
Grand Bay, 267. 

Green, Bp., visits Ala., 164; 190. 
Greene county, 24, 77. 
Greene Springs, 106. 
Greensboro, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26, 38, 

39, 55, 68, 76, 90, 169, 216 n, 243, 

254 273. 
Greenvilie, 98, 133 n, 243, 261, 278, 

301. 
Gulf Coast missions, 248, 267, 308. 

Hammond, Wm. P., 71. 
Hamner, Hall, 92; early history, 

110-112; 220; financial problem. 

220,228; why a failure, 228-32; 

division and sale, 228, 300. 
Hanson, Rev. F. R., 37, 77, 94, 109, 

113, 121, 153, 157, 241, 295-6. 
Harpersville, 235. 
Hart, Rev. Samuel, 12. 
Hawks, Rev. Francis L., 27. 
Hayneville. 37, 55, 98, 243, 278. 
Hays, Rev. Robert G., 29. 
Hopkins, Bp. J. H , 191. 
Howe, Bp., W. B. W.,283. 
Hunt, Rev. Geo. H., 238, 241, 295. 
Hunter, JohnL., 33 
Huntsville, 20, 22, 55, 62, 64, 67, 71, 

72, 76, 82, 86, 114, 115, 242, 244, 275. 

Ingraham, Rev. J. H., 113, 121. 
Ives, Bp., defection of, 58, 126. 
Ives, Rev. Caleb S., 24, 25, 29, 85. 

Jackson county, 97. 

Jackson, Bp.. nominated as Asst. 

Bp. of Ala M 281; elected, 282; 

consecrated 283. 
Jacksonville, 54, 68, 71, 72 n, 261, 

278. 
Jarratt, Rev. J. S.. 98, 167. 
Jarvis, Alex., 88. 
Jasper, 308. 
Johns, Bp , 157. 
Johnson, President, Governor's 

appeal to, 182; Bp's, 183. 
Johnson, John, 71. 
Johnson, Rev. Wm., 29, 108, 109, 

120 n. 
Johnston, Rev. J. S., 208, 295. 
Johnston, Rev. James T., elected 

Bp. of Ala., 39. 
Jones, Emanuel, 71, 88. 
Jones, Samuel G., 110, 111, 294, 301. 



3H 



INDEX. 



Jonesboro, 236. 

Jope, Rev. Robert, 242. 

Judd, Rev. Wm. H., 18. 

Kemper, Bp., third provisional 
Bp., of Ala., 31; 29. 

Kip, Bp.. 143. 

Knapp, Rev. N. P.. 37, 61, 62, 100, 
113; sketch of, 118-20; volume 
of sermons, 120 n; Bp. Cobbs' 
estimate of, 121; Churchroan- 
ship, 130. 

Knox, Wm., 88. 

Ku Klux, 196. 

La Fayette, 34, 50, 55. 

Lancaster, Rev. J. L., 282. 

Lay, Rev. Henrv C, 62, 64, 90, 103, 

113; sketch of, 114; 129 n. 155 

and n., 156, 189, 192. 
Lay discipline, 132, 291. 
Lay readers, 273-4; proposed 

legislation, 291 ; 305 
Leach, Dr. S. G-., 106. 
Lee, Rev. F. B., 77, 98,-100, 104, 

113,121,306-7. 
Lee, Rev. Francis Priolean. 120. 
Lefebvre, H. P., 220, 295, 300. 
Legislation, some diocesan, 290-3. 
Lesesne. T., 88. 
Letohatchie, 98. 
Lewis, Rev. S. S., 28, 37, 62, 81, 94, 

113; sketch of, 116-18; influence 

on diocese, 121; Churchman- 
ship, 130; 134. 
Lindsay, Rev. J. S., elected Bp. 

of Ala., 280-1. 
Linebaugh, Rev. J. H., 36, 78. 
Lipscomb, Chief Justice A. S., 21. 
Livingston, 37, 38, 50, 55, 67, 82, 

243, 254, 261, 267- 
Lockett. Powhatan, 223. 
Lorillard, Jacob, 29, 85. 
Lowndes countv, 50, 76. 
Lowndesboro, 55, 68, 71, 77, 82, 

278. 
Lynch, A., 108. 
Lyon, F. 3., 88, 154. 

Macon. See Gallion. 

Madison, 235. 

Madison county, 22. 77. 

Magnolia, 308. 

Marengo countv, 24, 77. 

Marion. 54, 67, 77, 134, 135, 135 n, 

169, 261, 273, 289. 
Marrast, John, S8. 
Martin's Station, 79, 307. 
Massey, Rev. J. A., 62, 113, 121, 

157, 204, 241, 294. 
Matthews, Rev. Andrew, 29. 



MavsviiK 235. 

McCoy, Tnos. W., 266 n. 

Meade, Bp., 46, 47, 48, 157. 

Meade, Francis K., 223. 

Menseos, Rev. A., 167. 

Middle Alabama, character of 
immigrants, 14; 267. 

Middleton, Robert, 269 n. 

Miller, Rev. B. M.. 62. 

Mineral region, 248. 307-8. 

Mitchell, Rev. J. M., 78, 96, 104, 
110, 111, 113, 122, 154. 

Missionary Society, organized 
94; spirit of, 94-5; original 
scope, 96; income and stipends 
of, 96-7. 

Mobile, ceded by France to Eng- 
land, 11; Ch. of England ser- 
vices, 12; under Spanish rule, 
14. 

Christ Church, organized, 18; 
Presbyterian minister, 18; 19, 
23, 26; Mr. Pinney deposed, 28; 
38, 49, 50, 55, 62, 68, 75, 81, 82, 86, 
90, 98, 117, 119. 120, 134; Brother- 
hood of the Church, 138-40 : city 
missions, 167; 244 n, 267, 274; 
parish house, 275 ; 299. 
Trinity Church, founded, 64; 
Massey at, 75 ; 86 ; parish school, 
135; free, 136; 244 n, 254; vested 
choir, 289. 

St. John's Church, founded, 71 ; 
built, 71-2; enlarged, 75; Ingra- 
ham at, 75; Pierce at, 116; 
founds Chnrch Home, 116, 214; 
free, 137; 244, 272. 
Good Shepherd, organized, 75; 
83; dissolved, 205; re-organized, 
208; 209. 210, 211.212, 

Montevallo, 54, 235, 243, 261. 

Montgomery, 21 ; St. John's 
founded. 29; 31, 38, 55, 62; capi- 
tal, 65 ; 66, 68, 71, 72, 76, 86, 90, 92, 
98; diocesan school, 110-11; 
Knapp, 119-20; parish school, 
134; daily services, 135; project- 
ed cathedral, 143; city missions, 
167; Negro S. S., 200; 224; first 
Holy Comforter parish, 234; 243- 
4 n. 254, 269 ; second Holy Com- 
forter parish, 274; chapel, 275; 
vested choir, 289 ; 298, 300. 

Moore, Bp., 44, 46. 

Mooresville, 235, 

Morris, Josiah, 223; Gilmer vs., 
226 n ; 275. 

Morris, Rev. T. A., 77, 97. 

Morrison, Rev. J. H., 62. 

Mt. Meigs, 54, 55, 243. 

Ait. Pleasant, 307. 



INDEX. 



315 



Mt. Stirling, 98. 

Muhlenberg, Rev. Wm. A., 58,80, 

170. 
Muller, Rev. Albert A., 20, 22, 23. 
Murray. Rev. John G., 306. 
Music, Church, Ti, 130, 137 ; vested 

choirs, 289; choral services, 289. 

Nashotah, experiment suggested 
by, 107. 

Navy Cove, 308. 

Nelson, R.M.. 279, 280. 

Negro, abolition, 195; demoral- 
ized, 196; terrorized, 196; bank- 
rupting State, 197; mutual dis- 
trust o I races, 197 ; martyrs, 198 ; 
position of laity toward, 198; 
" Freedmen's Commission," 
199; Good Shepherd, Mobile, 
199; Faunsdale chapel, 200; 
Montgomery, 200 ; Stickney's 
work"; 200-4; worship by con- 
tract, 201 ; heredity, 201 ; pecu- 
liar temptations, 202; failure 
at Faunsdale, 203; at Mobile, 
204 ; Northern error, 206 ; revival 
in Mobile, 208; St. Mark's, Bir- 
mingham, 212. 

Nevius, Rev. R. D., 97, 114, 168, 
294. 

Newell, Rev. Chester, 208. 

Nicolson, R. W., 88. 

Noble, John W., 274. 

Northport, 54, 55. 

Oak Grove, 308. 

" Old Church Path," 238. 

Opelika, 98. 243, 261, 27U, 273 n. 

Orphans' Home, Bp. Cobbs, 168; 
diocesan, left to Bp., 169; futile 
attempt at Mobile, 169; success 
at Tuskaloosa, 169-70; deacon- 
esses, 170; removed to Mobile, 
214; spirit of administration, 
215; liberality to, 215; Bazaar, 
216; economy in, 216; Bp.'s 
financiering, 217; enlarged 
scope, 217; endowment com- 
plete, 217, and now impaired, 
303. 

Otey, Bp., second provisional Bp. 
of Ala., 31. 

Oxford movement, effect of, in 
America, 57-8; on Bp. Cobbs, 
58-9. 

Parochialism, 60, 287. 

Parks, Rev. Martin P., elected 

Bp. of Ala., 38. 
Parsons, Gov. Lewis E., 182. 
Patton Mines, 308. 
Peake, Rev. Chas. F., 107, 108. 



Peck, Judge E.W.. 86, 100, 105, 140. 

Perdue, Rev. W. J., 77, 235, 307. 

Peterkin, Bp., 283. 

Perry, Bp., 187. 

Pews, ownership of, 136; voting 
power of, 136 ; rented, con- 
demned by Bp. Cobbs, 136; 
Tuskaloosa has first free, 136; 
Trinity Church, Mobile, free, 
136. 

Phelan, J. D., 154-7. 

Pierce, Rev. A. W., 210. 

Pierce, Rev. H. N., 113, 115, 116, 
154, 294 

Pierce, W. F., 88. 

Piedmont, 248. 

"Pillar of Fire," 121. 

Pinkney, Rev. Wm., 158 and n. 

Pinney, Rev. Norman, 22, 28. 

Pleasant Bill, 55 

Point Clear, 308. 

Polk. Bp , fourth provisional Bp. 
of Ala., 38. 

Pollard, Chas. T., 88, 109, HI, 223, 
294 302. 

Prairies, St. John's-in-the, 25, 26, 
31, 38, 50, 67, 82, 296. 

Prairieville. See Gallion. 

Pratt City, 254. 

Prattville, 98, 148, 274. 

Presbyterian minister of Christ 
Ch., Mobile, 19. 

Primary Convention, 19, 20. 

" Prince of the House of David," 
121. 

Prayer for Pres. of U. S., re- 
moved, 164; Bp. Wilmer's ob- 
jection to, 171, 174 ; attempt to 
compel use, 175-80; order re- 
voked, 183-5; prayer restored, 
186; Bp. Perry on the principle 
involved, 187. 

Pugh, J.L.,33. 

" Puseyisin," 57. 

Pushmataha, 50, 98, 261, 306. 

Randolph, Bp., 283. 

Rees, Rev. H. K., 266. 

Relief of Disabled Clergy, Society 
for ; organized, 100 ; merged in- 
to Convention, 100 ; autonomy 
of, 100; plan of relief, 101; 
Beirne's financiering, 102, 103-4. 

Richmond, Rev. Wm.,' 20. 

Ritual, Gen. Convention's decla- 
ration on, 57; at Hamner Hall, 
230 n; laxity in, 289. 

Ritualism, evangelical, 73; me- 
diaeval, 124; in Mobile, 210; at 
Talladega, 277; toleration of 
and result, 288 n. 



3*6 



INDEX. 



Robinson's Springs, 55, 68. 

Robertson, Rev. j. M., 77, 88. 

Roinophobia, 124. 

Rose, Rev. L. W., 238, 253, 281. 

Ross, Wm. H , 294 

Russell county, 68, 77, 83. 

Salaries, Bishop's, 51, 155, 243, 258 
n; clergy's, 51 ; how eked out, 
51, 134; in war times, 166. 

Salem, 98. 

Sansom, Rev. Henrv, 234. 

Saul School, 209. 

Schools, parish, 134-5; diocesan, 
228-32. 

Schroeder. H. A., 141, 275. 

Scott, Rev. J. J , 37, 94, 234. 

Seale, 50, 62, 243, 261. 

Sectarianism, why intolerant of 
Church, 59, 60; 'condemned by 
Bp. Cobb?, 124. 

Selma, 35; first church. 36: 55, 66, 
68, 76, 79, 83, 98, 169, 216 n, 234; 
new church. 243 ; 244 n, 254, 278. 

Shaw, Rev. Henry A., 18, 20, 22. 

Shepherd. Rev. J . Avery, 111, 220. 

Silver Run, 236. 

Simpson, John, 100. 

Slaves, error as to, 80 ; treatment 
of, 81; ministrations to, 81-3; 
war time missions, 167-8. See 
Negro. 

Smith, Rev. A. S., 10V6. 

Smith, Rev. J. F , 77, 98,114, 242. 

Smith, Rev. S. U., 77, 114, 224. 

Snow, Chas., 106. 

Snow, Henrv *.., 106. 

Snowdoun, 242. 

Society for Relief. See Relief. 

South 'Alabama, religious intol- 
erance in, 14; wrested from 
Spanish, 14. 

Southwestern Diocese, 21, 24, 26, 
27, 28. 

Spring Hill, 83. 

St. Jbhn's-in-the-Prairies. See 
Prairies. 

St. Jolurs-in-the- Wilderness. See 
Russell countv. 

St. Stephen's, 50, 306. 

Stewart, Daniel, 162. 

Stewart, John, 161 2. 

Sticknev, ('has. L., 266. 

Sticknev, Rev. G-. W., 77, 107. 

Stickne'y, Rev. W. A.. 77, 104, 113, 
122 ; at Marion, 134-5 ; plantation 
missions, 167; exercises primi- 
tive discipline, 167, 200; 294-5. 

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 80. 

Stringfellow, Rev. H., 221, 223, 
241, 260-6-9, 276-7-8-9, 195-6-9. 



Stringfellow, H., Jr., 227. 
Summerville, 74, 242. 
Sumterville, 54, 71. 

Talladega, 55, 68, 135, 235, 243, 261, 
277-8. 

Tallassee. 50, 98, 243. 

Tavloe, H A., 86, 100-2, 157. 

Tavlor, Rev. J. C , 266. 

Taylor, Thos. B., U0-1, 294. 

Tennessee Valley, character of 
immigrants, 14'; temporal pros- 
perity, 22; 39, 24>, 261-7. 

Thelogical novels, 121. 

Thomas, General, 179; malicious- 
ness of, 183. 

Thompson, Bp., 283. 

Tnompson, Rev. J. J. X., 211. 

" Throne of David." 121. 

Ticknor, Rev. J. H., 104, 157,234-7. 

Til den, 261. 

Tompkins, H. C.,227. 

"Tract 90," 124. 

Triana, 235. 

Trov, 77. 274. 

Tucker, Rev. G. C, 272. 282, 295. 

Tucker, Rev. J. L., 209, 266. 295. 

Tuscumbia, 22, 38, 49, 55, 67, 71, 235. 

Tuskaloosa, state capital, 17; 
Christ Church founded, 17; 20, 
22, 23, 26, 29, 38, 50, 62; parochial 
schism, 62. 108-9; capital re- 
moved, 65 ; 66, 67, 68 ; St. Philips' 
chapel, 71 ; 76, 83; first diocesan 
schools, 105-6-8; 108-9, 117-8, 
134-5; dailv services, li6; first 
free church, 136; 137, 168; first 
deaconesses, 170; Orphans' 
Home, 169, 170, 213-4; 216 », 243 
n, 254, 298. 

Tuskegee, 50, 54, 55, 98. 

Tyler's, 118 n, 37. 

" Uncle Tom's Cabin," 80, 81. 

Union Springs, 77, 243, 254, 261. 

Uuiontovm. 67, 82, 254, 273-4-8. 

Univ. of South, attempt to estab- 
lish in Ala., 142; Ala. asked for 
$250,000, 142. 

Univ. of Va.. Bp. Cobbs chaplain 
of, 45-6. 

Van Hoose, Rev. J. A., 212, 252, 

279. 
'•Via Media," 123. 
Vinton, Alex. H.,58; Francis, 58. 

Waddili, Rev. J. C, 98. 
Wall, Rev. Wm., 13. 
Waller, Chas. E., 266-8-9. 
Warrior, 308. 



INDEX. 



317 



West Point, 50. 

Wetumpka, 29. 55, 68. 

Wheelock, Rev. J. A., 98. 

Wliistler, 261, 267. 

White, Joel, 223, 294, 301. 

Whittingham, Bp., 170. 

" Wider Hope," Bp. Cobbs on, 128. 

Wilderness, St. John's -in -the. 
See Russell county. 

Wilkins, George A., 281. 

Wilmer, Bp., dissects " Uncle 
Tom's Cabin," 81; election and 
consecration. 158; early life, 
158-63; shows his calibre, 165; 
establishes orphans' home, 169, 
and order of deaconesses, 170; 
conception of Epis. preroga- 
tive, 170; objection to Prayer 
forPres. of the U. S., 171; on 
diocesan rights, 172 ; on ecclesi- 
astical freedom, 173; position 
denned, 174 ; clash with military 
power, 175; "suspended," 179; 
disregards suspension, 181; 
appeals to Gen Conv., 181, Gov. 
Parsons, 182, and Pres. John- 
son, 183; carries his point, 186; 
principle at stake, 187; on re- 
union, 190 ; correspondence 
with Bp. Hopkins, 190-1; juris- 



diction recognized by House of 
Bps., 192; Declaration of Con- 
formity, 193; "Freedinen'8 
Commission," 199; reorganizes 
Negro work in Mobile, 208; and 
proposes ritual, 209; settles 
Church Home in Mobile, 217; 
no fixed salary, 236; urges sys- 
tem, 257; ill health, 274; asks for 
an Assistant, 275, and with- 
draws request, 278; gives con- 
sent to election, 280; catholi- 
city, 287; on Episcopal authori- 
ty, 292 n. 

Wilsonville, 235. 

Winn. A. B., 94. . 

Wolfe, Miss Catherine, 245. 

Woodlawn, 77, 252-4-6, 308. 

Woods, Gen. Chas. R., 175-6, 180-1. 

Woodville. See Uniontown. 

Woolworth, Hon. J. M., 143 n. 

Wright, Rev. Lucien B., 35, 78. 

Yancey, Wm. L., 79. 

Yellow fever, in Montgomery, 62 ; 
in Mobile, 138; in Norfolk and 
Portsmouth, 139. 

Yongesboro, 50, 98. 

" Young Men's Episcopal Asso- 
ciation," of Montgomery, 300. 



021 898 874 A 



